


The Jackson Twins

by ShatteredAngel



Series: The Twin Souls [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Body Sharing, Gen, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Snark, Twin Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-24 11:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShatteredAngel/pseuds/ShatteredAngel
Summary: Percy had always known he and his twin brother were not normal. That was fact. Things just seemed to happen around them. It was a surprise, finding out that they were Demigods. If being a demigod was rough normally, they dreaded what would happen to them since they were two demigod souls sharing one body.Cross posted from FF.Net





	1. I Accidentally Vaporize Our Pre-Algebra Teacher

**Author's Note:**

> I suck and i hope all of you enjoy this.
> 
> I used source material from the book, but edited the crap out of it. 
> 
> Fun fact: in 1900 1/3 of the cars in New York City were electric. Yay for progrees, huh? (sarcasm mode activated)
> 
> I Do Not Own.
> 
> PJO is owned by Rick Riordan. I only own my ideas and my OC
> 
> All source material used under fair use and no profit is being made by me from it.

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked my twin his opinion on being one, though. He never shared, either.  
If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:

close this book right now. Believe what ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us.

And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson. My twin brother is named Elias, and this, is our story:  
...~...  
I should start from the beginning, which is when I first noticed that something was different with my brother and I. When people think of twins they think of two separate people, and in most cases they would be correct. Not Elias and I. We share a body. I first noticed that something was wrong with our situation when we were three (Or so Elias says) I saw other sets of twins and had met a few at preschool. I had always known that I had someone else in my body with me, but I was the only one who knew he was there. so I had asked my mother, Sally Jackson, about it the best way I could. Neither one of us really remember how I had asked Why I was the only one who shared a body with my twin, who, at that point in time had no name.

We just know that, from that point on, We were twins and mom had given him a name. Elias Skye Jackson.  
...~...  
We are twelve years old and, until a few months ago, we were attending Yancy Academy. Yancy is a Boarding School for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid? Yes. Is Elias? Not on your life. Between the two of us, he is the more mature and level headed one. He is usually trying to stop me from getting into trouble. I could start at any point in our short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids, one unknown relatively sane invisible student, and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know—it sounds like torture, but Elias was excited. I tried to get excited too, for his sake. He was always the more studious of us and was the reason I never dropped below a C-. I know, it's kind of cheating, but, it's his grade, too. , our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had to try and be good. Elias loved Mr. Brunner. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep, thus forcing Elias to the forefront. Which could be bad.

Elias and I are nearly identical in looks, except, He needs glasses and his eyes are this opaque sea green that just absorb the light, almost. It's kind of frightening, the way his eyes look. It's like they can see everything about you, while it's almost impossible to read him. He keeps our head down when he is in control, so no one notices. He also just quietly puts on 'our reading glasses' (Which are actually his prescription glasses for his near sightedness). He rarely takes control.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get us in trouble. Boy, was I wrong. See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at our fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got us expelled anyway. And before that, at our fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea. This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, we put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting our best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich. Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. Elias always found that hilarious, for some reason. He adored Grover and wished he could talk with him, but since mom told us not to let anyone know about Elias, he couldn't say anything to our friend.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me, and by extension, Elias with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled. Elias stirred from his short nap in his part of our mind, feeling my anger. I allowed him to scan my memories of the past hour.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

_"Listen to him, brother. She's not worth it."_ Elias urged me, trying to calm me by sending waves of calm through our shared headspace. Grover dodged another piece of sandwich.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. _"Percy, please!"_ Elias begged.

  
"You're already on probation," Grover reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens. "Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get Elias and myself into.

  
Mr. Brunner led the museum rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. Elias just was happy to be learning as I let him unscramble the letters of the words that made up the fact plaques. He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting. Elias was getting annoyed as well, but everybody around us was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

  
Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get us after-school detention for a month. One time, after she'd made us erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight (Elias switched with me at around 9 pm), I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at us, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

  
Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"It came out louder than I meant it to. The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?" Our face was totally red. I said, "No, sir." Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

  
I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it,, as did my twin. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" I asked/stated

  
"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

  
_"God?"_ Elias asked me teasingly.

  
"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

  
_"I think like our teacher!"_ my brother snorted drily.

  
"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

  
_"That's gross"_ Elias pointed out unhelpfully.

  
"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. Elias snorted again.

  
"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

  
_"You, my dear brother, just summed up years of fighting, in a few short sentences."_ Elias said through his laughter. I didn't see the humor, but, then again, Elias had an odd and somewhat dry sense of humor. There were some snickers from the group, seemingly sharing my twins amusement.

  
  
Behind us, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids."

  
"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

  
"Busted," Grover muttered.

  
"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

  
_"Attractive."_   Elias snorted.

  
At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir." I sent some questioning feelings to my brother, hoping he knew the answer.

  
_"Neither do I, Percy. Sorry, brother."_ My twin told me, unhappy that he couldn't be of help.

  
"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?" He asked our math teacher.

  
The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson." I knew that was coming. I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. "You must learn the answer to my question." Mr. Brunner told me.

  
"About the Titans?" I asked.

  
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

  
"Oh." I said lamely. Elias was silent as he thought about Brunner's words.

  
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson." I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. Elias enjoyed the challenge, though. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. Elias really shone through those times as he worked double time to try and give me the correct answers. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life without Elias helping me. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly without having my twin take over, and even then, he had the same issues that I did, just les severe.

  
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

  
_"He seems sad."_ Elias said softly, wishing he could say something to help.

  
Mr. Brunner told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth , a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. Elias was skeptical, for some reason. He had a bad feeling about the sporadic weather.

  
We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing. Grover and us sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. "Detention?" Grover asked."Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius." 'Elias is closer to being a genius than I am' I thought to myself, keeping that thought away from my twin.

  
Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

  
_"Oh, Grover, never change"_ my brother snickered from within our mind.

  
We didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about our mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. Elias and I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug us and be glad to see us, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send us right back to Yancy, remind us (mainly me) that we had to try harder, even if this was our sixth school in six years and I was probably going to get us kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. Neither would my brother.

  
Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table. I was about to unwrap our sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of us with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

  
"Oops." She grinned at us with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears, drowning Elias' attempt to calm me. I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

  
Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

  
_"Crap."_ Elias said flatly.

  
Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

  
"—the water—"

  
"—like it grabbed her—"

  
I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that we were in trouble soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

  
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." I realized my mistake almost immediately. 'That wasn't the right thing to say.' I thought to my twin.

  
_"No kidding."_ Elias quipped back.

  
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

  
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

  
I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

  
_"You are a brave boy, Grover. Thank you."_ Elias told him, not that he heard my brother. The sentiment was there, though.

  
She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

  
"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

  
"But—" Grover tried to speak

  
"You—will—stay—here." Mrs. Dodds ground out.

  
Grover looked at us desperately.

  
"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

  
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

  
Nancy Bobofit smirked.

  
I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. It was different from Elias' 'I-will-destroy-your-soul' stare. With the way his eyes looked, his stare was the more frightening one.

  
Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.  
'How'd she get there so fast?' I asked my invisible twin.

  
_"I have no idea."_ He told me, mentally shrugging.

  
We have moments like that a lot, when our brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know we've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left us staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, ur brain misinterpreting things.

  
Elias I weren't so sure about that.

  
I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

  
I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. 'Okay', I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.' Elias snorted.

  
_"Or try to kill you."_ He joked

  
I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty. Elias sent me his uneasy feeling. Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

  
_"Even for her, that is not normal..."_ my twin trailed off

  
Even without the noise and Elias' unease, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

  
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

  
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

  
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

  
"Get away with what?" my invisible brother asked me.

  
The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. 'She's a teacher', I thought nervously. 'It's not like she's going to hurt us.' I tried to reassure the both of us. Elias stayed silent. I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

  
Thunder shook the building. "We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain." Elias and I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of our dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book. (Elias had been mad at me the week the report was due so he made me do it myself. He was still miffed that I didn't actually do it)

  
"Well?" she demanded.

  
"Ma'am, I don't..." I tried to say.

  
"Your time is up," she hissed.

  
Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice us to ribbons.

  
_"WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL?"_ Elias screamed, making me wince at the volume. (I somehow heard Elias in both of our shared headspace and as an outside sound. Meaning I heard him mentally and audibly through our ears.)

  
Then... things got even stranger.

  
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. "What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

  
Mrs. Dodds lunged at us.

  
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to our ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit our hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. Mrs. Dodds spun toward us with a murderous look in her eyes. Our knees were jelly and our hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. Elias' 'brain' had pretty much shut down from shock at this point, not that I had noticed at the time.

  
She snarled, "Die, honey!"

  
And she flew straight at us.

  
Absolute terror ran through our shared body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

  
Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching us.

  
We were alone.

  
There was a ballpoint pen in our hand.

  
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but us.

  
And then with a simple _"Nope."_ Elias checked out to his part of our mindscape, done.

  
Our hands were still trembling. Our lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

  
Had we imagined the whole thing?

  
I went back outside.

  
It had started to rain.

  
Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

  
I said, "Who?"

  
"Our teacher. Duh!"

  
I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

  
She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

  
I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

  
He said, "Who?"

  
But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

  
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

  
Thunder boomed overhead.

  
I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

  
I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

  
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

  
He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

  
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

  
He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

  
I wished I could follow Elias into oblivion.


	2. Two old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter. It was a pain to make because I accidentally deleted half of it.
> 
> Fun Fact: Kitty litter is like sand. It gets everywhere.
> 
> see first chapter for disclaimer.

Elias I were used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than we could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on us. Elias was just done with the whole students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom we had never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed. Elias just wanted to forget Dodds had ever existed, to leave the memories of her in the past. it almost worked. Almost. But Grover couldn't fool us. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But we knew he was lying.

"He needs lying lessons" My brother pointed out, drily, once when Grover tried. Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake us both up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help our moods. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in our dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.

_"Mother nature is pissed."_ Elias had joked.

One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time and in turn made Elias irritable. We were stuck in a feedback loop of emotions. Our grades slipped from C's to D's. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. Elias had stopped trying to scold me after the fifteenth time that happened.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

_"Calling someone an old sot is another way to say someone is a drunk, Percy."_ my twin helpfully explained when we were sent to the office.

The headmaster sent our mom a letter the following week, making it official: I, and by extension, Elias, would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. 'Fine,' I told myself. 'Just fine.' Elias just sighed.

We were homesick. We wanted to be with our mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if we had to go to public school and put up with our obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. And yet . . . there were things we'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out of our dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. we'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange and had no idea Elias even existed.

I worried how he'd survive next year without me. We'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days in his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I personally studied for. Elias always did most of the studying, ensuring we would at least do average. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner told me about this subject being life-a-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him. My disembodied twin just had a bad feeling about that.

The evening before our final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. _"What did that poor book ever do to you, brother?"_ Elias asked me, half joking.

'It exists.' I responded back, mentally. 'I hate Dyslexia, Eli.'

_"Me too. Love you, Percy. Good night"_ Elias said before he went off to dreamland for the night. (He always tried to go to sleep before me, to give me some time when our body was just my own.)

Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin Verbs? Forget it. I wanted to be the one to do the test, without my twin's help. I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. I took a deep breath and I picked up our mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried. I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice was definitely Grover's said ". . . worries about Percy, sir." I froze. I'm not usually an eavesdropper (Eli always scolded me when I did), but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. I inched closer.

". . . alone this summer." Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him." Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line-"

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her . . ."

"His imagination." Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I . . . I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-" The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. My heart started hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat tickled down my in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn . . ."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to get ready for this test?"

I didn't answer."You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just . . . tired." I turned so he couldn't read my expression,and started getting ready for bed .I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of trouble. I soon followed my brother.

I entered our shared mindscape in sleep, I immediately went looking for my brother to tell him what just happened. I found him by a lake in his half of the mental plane that we had created using our imaginations. I quickly explained.

"What in the world is even happening anymore, brother?" he asked in bewilderment. Elias' opaque eyes were narrowed slightly as he tried to puzzle things out

"I have no idea. I thought you would." I shrugged. Eli quirked an was an action that would look weird on me, but with his glasses, it worked for my twin. Even though we looked almost the same Elias was just more mature looking with his glasses, somehow. We never differentiated each other as 'Big brother' or 'Little brother', but, I had the feeling that Elias was older, somehow. I was the one who first had control of our body, so I was the one to 'pilot' ninety-five percent of the time. Which was fine, since Elias preferred to observe things and I preferred to act.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, our eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. For a moment I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's . . . it's for the best." His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic kidding motions with her lips. Elias seethed at her. (Not that she knew.)

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean . . ." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time. "My eyes stung. My twin mentally hugged me, offering silent comfort. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right." I said, trembling.

"No, no" Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say . . . you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-""Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"Percy-" But we were already gone. Elias sending waves of comfort even through his own hurt. On the last day of the term, I shoved our clothes into our luggage. The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

On guy asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that Elias and I would have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend our free time worrying about where we'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person we dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, we didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as we had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. Elias had finally convinced me to at least give him a letter he had written for our friend. Of course, Elias had worded it as if he had never met Grover. Which, in a way, was true, Grover didn't know Eli was sharing a body with me. "Uh, hey Grover, I have something to tell you and give you, man." I said nervously.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

"I know that I should have said something before now, but I have a twin brother, Elias. He went to a different school this year, so you couldn't meet him. I told him all about you, dude. Eli sent me this letter to give to you." I noticed that Grover went paler with every word I spoke once the words 'I have a twin' were uttered.

"What! Why didn't you tell me!" For some reason Grover seemed panicked.

_"Why is he panicking?"_ Elias asked me.

'I don't know.' I answered back.

"I don't know. I guess that I forgot to mention it. I'm sorry, Grover." I told our best friend, lying through our teeth. It was one that I had practiced until I could even fool our mom with. I handed him the neatly folded piece of paper after I got it out of my pocket. "I forgot to give you this a few weeks ago. I found it again when I was packing up. Grover quickly grabbed the letter with shaking hands. I caught a glimpse of my twin's careful handwriting. I could hear Elias reciting it in our mind

_"Dear Grover,_

_I know that we haven't met and that my darling twin has more than likely forgot to mention that I even exist, that is why I have written you this small letter. My name is Elias Jackson. I am Percy's nearly identical twin brother. The only differences between us are the fact that my eyes are a different color, I wear glasses, and I am the more mature and level headed twin. I have heard so much about you, Grover, that I just had to write you this letter to thank you. I really appreciate that you have been looking out for my brother since I couldn't be there to do it. I'm sure he has given you tons of trouble. I am glad he has found a friend to be there for him._

_I hope to meet you some day,_

_Elias"_

I could almost feel the tension in Grover as he read my brother's almost formal letter. Elias always got very polite when he was talking to people who didn't know him. Even if it was just him writing a letter to Grover. Our best friend was oddly silent after finishing the letter. I felt awkward.

_"Ask him if he wants to see a picture of me. Show him the one mom took at Christmas, maybe that will help."_ Elias suggested. I quickly searched my carry on for the picture Eli was talking about. I also grabbed the one taken a few minutes before that one of me. I nudged Grover to get his attention.

"Hey, man, wanna see a picture of Eli?" I asked and handed him the one of me that had me in control of our body and wearing an elf hat and green Christmas sweater.

The one with Elias in control had him in a Santa hat, Opaque sea green eyes seemingly devoid of emotion unless you knew how to read them. His glasses were perched low on our nose and he was smirking at the camera, eyebrow quirked. He was wearing the blue sweater. Mom always took pictures of us like that. she would get me first and then I would change clothes and Elias would take over for a bit. Mom, of course would always hide Eli's photos from our step-father. Mom, Eli, and me were the only ones who knew about him, until now. Elias wanted Grover to know he existed at least. He hoped one day that Grover would know the whole truth.

For most of the rest of the bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. Elias mentally frowned and sent me his confusion. I just mentally sent him my own.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

_"Smooth, Percy, smooth"_ Elias snorted.

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha- what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

_"Percy, you should never confess!"_ Eli told me, mock seriously. Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh . . . not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. "Look, Percy . . . I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers . . ."

"Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and . . ."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." His ears turned pink.

"Adorable" I couldn't tell if Elias was joking or not.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but Elias made quick work of it and translated for me. It read:

_Grover Underwood_

_Keeper_

_Half-Blood Hill_

_Long Island, New York_

_(800) 009-0009_

_"Very Harry Potter"_ Elias snorted at his own comment. I gave him a mental eye roll.

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" He yelped. "That's my, um . . . summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. "Okay." I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or . . . or if you need me. Bring your twin."

"Why would I need you?" It came out harsher than I meant it to.

"Percy!" Cue the scolding

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you... A-and Elias."

I stared at him. Elias gave a 'blink'

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. "Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting us from?"There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the road. After a few minutes clanking around in the engine around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

_"I don't think the egg smell was normal."_ Elias muttered.

'And the bus breaking down is?' I asked back. He sent back a shrug.

We were on a stretch of country road- no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. Elias was drooling at the sight of the cherries. (The only food he loved more than cherries was peaches or pomegranate.) There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. The three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me. Or through me.

_"Um... Bro, They are creeping me out."_ Elias squeaked. He had always been a bit of a coward and startled pretty easily.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching."Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

_"Not funny..."_ Eli trailed off, uneasy.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. "We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

_"Go with him!"_ Eli urged, his unease growing. Across the road, the old ladies were still watching middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four-lanes of traffic. Eli gave a whimper. He was majorly freaked. I gave him a mental hug, trying to calm him down, despite the fact I felt the same way as he did. He hugged back. The third Lady's two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for- Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The other passengers cheered. "Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Elias was shaking in our shared mind. Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. "Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?" He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve.

"Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like . . . Mrs. Dodds, are they?" His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.

He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost... older. Grover said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. Eli shook harder.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumbs. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me, "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me." This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked. "Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" Elias checked out to his happy place with a looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hoped you enjoyed!
> 
> Please comment.
> 
> Fan art wanted.
> 
> TTFN!


	3. Grover Looses his Pants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sad that this story isn't getting the response I had hoped for, but, I'm gonna keep chugging along with it! 
> 
> Fun fact: Laughter can increase your overall lifespan. It truly is the best medicine!
> 
> IMPORTANT!
> 
> Thank you noiwontentermyname for pointing something out for me! For everyone's convenience, I felt I should let you all know that I have a friend, who wishes to stay anonymous so people will not bug them to post something that they were not happy with, that wrote an entire "Character's reading their series" Fanfic series that they never posted. They gave it to me to edit and use for this fic. So there may be some lines from their work that I miss. I would love it if you all point them out to me, so I can fix it.
> 
> Disclaimer: See chapter 1

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. I know, I know. It was rude. Elias gave me an earful for doing it. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got our suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

A word about our mother before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting our dad. We don't have memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.

Our mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told us he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told us. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised us on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. (Elias had always been more mild compared to me. I often told him that he should be the one in control, to make things easier on mom. He always said that since I was aware first, I was the one to be in control of our shared body. His words, not mine.)

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice for the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts. Elias agreed with me. Between Gabe and I, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along . . . well, when Elias and I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping our mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in a thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something. Elias snorted at that observation. " _That, dear brother, is an insult to walrus' everywhere."_

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made Elias and I nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I (or, unknown to him, Elias) told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else. "You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I _right?_ " Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. Elias gagged.

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of our pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

" _Really, the lowest grade we got was a C- in literature."_ my twin scoffed. _"Smelly Gabe probably never got above a D in his life!"_ Elias wanted to be a doctor, so he took our studies seriously. I had convinced him that when we were old enough to have an actual career that he could be in control during work. So, he got to choose what we were gonna do when we were adults. HE loved the thought of being able to save people through medicine.

When we were younger I had wanted to take Karate classes, while Elias wanted to take cooking classes. I was the one to get into fights, while my brother was a pacifist.

I slammed the door to our room, which really wasn't our room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving our stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on our windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped our suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home. Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn. Elias snorted once more. I was glad he had recovered from earlier. But as soon as I thought that, our legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through us. I felt like someone-something-was looking for us right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. Elias whimpered at the thought.

Then we heard our mom's voice. "Percy?" and quieter "Elias?"

She opened the bedroom door, and our fears melted away.

Our mother can make us feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but we could never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's been seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. She also seems like she looks through me, at times, to see Elias. She looks at him the same way. I've never heard her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me, Elias or Gabe.

"Oh, you two" She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

" _Aw shucks."_ Eli said like the dork he is.

Mom's red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought us a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when we came home. We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through our hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in our letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting us expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But were we okay? Were her little boys doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her. Elias was beaming and turning into a happy puddle of goo.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth and Elias groaned. Our mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about Our last days at Yancy Academy. I told her Elias and I weren't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. We liked Yancy Academy. We really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad. Elias agreed. (Though he hated that he couldn't talk to mom himself while Gabe was home. To big of a risk of exposure.)

Until the trip to the museum . . .

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at our conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

" _Oh no..."_ Elias groaned. he was glad that he wasn't the one in control at that moment, he would have told mom _everything_.

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but didn't push me. "I have a surprise for the both of you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed,"

 _"HELL YEAH!"_ my twin cheered. I always though that he was lucky that he could curse without mom knowing.

We couldn't believe it. Our mom and us hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

Surprisingly Elias also wanted to punch him, but we met mom's eyes and understood she was offering us a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

" _Typical Smelly Gabe."_ Elias scoffed.

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip . . . it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," our mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with the seven-layer dip . . . And maybe if the kid apologized for interrupting my poker game."

'Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot,' I thought. 'And make you sing soprano for a week.' Elias just laughed at that. But mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she put up with this guy? my brother and I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought? "I'm sorry," I muttered with Elias echoing me in our shared mind. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now." Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in our statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

 _"Asshole"_ Elias snarled. Gabe was the only person that I had ever known to actually make my brother rage and want to resort to violenc

"Thank you, Percy, Elias." mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about . . . whatever you've both forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear we'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and we figured we must have been mistaken. She ruffled our hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug mom's bags to the car, he kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro- for the whole weekend. "Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch." Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

" _Dick."_ My twin said.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture we'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-of-evil gesture, a clawed hand over our heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

 _"Another thing for the list."_ Elias mumbled to himself more than me.

Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but we didn't stay long enough to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

My brother and I loved the place.

We'd been going there since we were a baby. Our mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but we knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met our dad. As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples mom had brought from work.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She brought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano was proof she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Elias content with just being a watcher for the night. The next day would be his day with mom, as was tradition. He got the day after our return home. Mom told us stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told us about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-our father. Elias thought about him less than I did, but he was curious too.

Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell us the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them while my brother wanted to hear more details.

"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You both have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes, except Elias' are unique. Still the same shade, though." Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you both. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with D+ report card without his twin's help, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years. Elias tried way more than I did.

" _You're wrong, Perce. I am ADHD and dyslexic, too. My eyes are also bad. I prefer home economics to PE, arts and crafts to martial arts, and am more passive than I probably should be. I'm a sissy. Most fathers would prefer to have a son like you, brother."_ Elias told me his feelings.

'You're not a sissy. You are just more in touch with your feelings.' I told him, repeating something mom had said before. 'I hear girls dig that.'

 _"We're twelve, Percy, girls aren't my thing yet. They should still have cooties in our eyes."_ he laughed out his response, mood lifted.

"Did Eli say something funny?" Mom asked when I started laughing for seemingly no reason after about a minute of silence. I just nodded with a grin. I soon had a though, though. "How old were we?" I asked. "I mean . . . when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But . . . he knew me as a baby." I knew that he didn't know my twin, since he only awoke for the first time that we knew of when I was three.

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember . . . something about our father. A warm glow. A smile. I have always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still. I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never seen me . . . I felt angry at our father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe. Elias was just as upset, but he didn't resent our father. In fact, he seemed ambivalent towards the man.

"Are you going to send us away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think . . . I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want us around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out and my brother was stunned at what I had said.

Our mom's eyes welled with tears. She took our hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, Elias, no. I-I _have_ to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you two away." Her words reminded us of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was the best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal, and not just because of sharing a body and most of a mind with my twin" I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you both are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd both finally be safe."

"Safe from what?" Elias wondered the same.

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to the both of us -all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to us, some of which I'd tried to forget. During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked Elias on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under is broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head. Before that-a really early memory. We were in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put us down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. Our mom screamed when she came to pick us up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands. Elias had been sad for the snake, but soon got over it due to the fun I was having. Back then we weren't as separated.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and we were forced to move. We both knew that we should tell our mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about the weird hallucination that we had sliced our math teacher into dust with a sword. But we couldn't force ourselves to tell her. We both had the strange feeling that the news would end our trip to Montauk, and we didn't want that. It was really late now and I felt that Elias would be better for this. We switched seamlessly between one blink and the next. He got out his glasses from the case I always had on me.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, you two -the place your father wanted to send you. And I just . . . I just can't stand to do it."

"Our father wanted us to go to a special school?" Elias asked.

"Not a school, Elias," she said softly. "A summer camp." She hugged him as she said this.

"Percy decided to give me some extra time. He also wanted to not put our foot in it" He told her when she gave him a questioning look at the fact I had given up control early.

My head was spinning. Why would our dad -who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see us born -talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"Percy wants to know why you haven't mentioned this summer camp before." Eli told mom.

I'm sorry, Percy," she said. "but I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you both to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you two for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp surely we would be back in time for school, before school even!" Elias exclaimed. He was really starting to get worried.

She turned toward the fire, and we knew from her expression that if either of us asked any more questions she would start to cry. Neither of us wanted that to happen.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _No!_

I woke with a start. Elias had already been awake before me and had his glasses on.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

'Lovely thought, dearest twin of mine.' Eli teased affectionately, well used to my interesting descriptions. I just sent him my feeling of unease and he sent his right back.

With the next thunderclap, mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

We knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, We heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

"That does not sound normal." Elias muttered softly. Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. Our mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't . . . he wasn't exactly Grover.

"What the hell?" Elias said faintly. I didn't know what to say.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking? Are both of them here?"

Our mother looked at us in terror -not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Elias," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't either of you tell me?"

Elias was frozen, looking at Grover. we both couldn't understand what we were seeing.

 _"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"_ he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't Percy tell her? He told you, right, Elias" Grover asked, unsure. Elias had started staring him in the eyes as soon as he had addressed my twin. I knew that my brother's eyes were unnerving. Elias was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and we'd understood him perfectly. He didn't answer, either. _I_ was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be . . . where his legs should be . . .

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: _" Elias. Percy._ Tell me _now!"_ Grover was now looking confused at the fact mom had addressed both my twin and I when it seemed only Elias was there.

My twin stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and our mom stared at us, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

"I'm sorry!" Elias cried out.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. All of you. _Go!"_

Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. We now understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet.

There were cloven hooves.

"Holy shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Grover finally learns the truth about our boys and there will be tears!


	4. Storms and Bullfighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT!  
> Thank you noiwontentermyname from ao3 for pointing something out for me! For everyone's convenience, I felt I should let you all know that I have a friend, who wishes to stay anonymous so people will not bug them to post something that they were not happy with, that wrote an entire "Character's reading their series" Fanfic series that they never posted. They gave it to me to edit and use for this fic. So there may be some lines from their work that I miss. I would love it if you all point them out to me, so I can fix it.
> 
> Holy Hades, this is gonna be a long fic! it's already one of the longest ones that I have written! Thank you to the few people that like this!
> 
> I know Elias may seem pretty weak and a coward, he's not. He just needs to find his resolve.
> 
> Fun Fact: It is possible to kill a cactus by forgetting to water it. I have done this. I am literally less nurturing than a desert.
> 
> Disclaimer: See ch.1

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. Elias hated storms, so at this point we had switched back. I didn't know how mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas. Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo... lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

"What's going on with your family?" Grover finally asked. My twin and I had a quick debate using our emotions to try and figure out who was going to explain our unique situation. Elias lost. He groaned and then we switched once more.

"Percy and I share a body. We are two separate souls who are forced to cohabitate. We don't know how. We don't know why. We just do. Percy is the one in control ninety-five percent of the time. We both agreed to this arrangement. It's not an ideal life for either of us, but we cope almost perfectly, I think." Elias explained tersely. He was freaking out because of what was happening and the storm.

"It's true, Grover. I have had them keep this a secret ever since I found out about Elias. Please do not be mad at them. They only kept it from you for safety reasons. I should have mentioned this before, honestly. I was just scared for my boys." Mom told Grover. Elias switched back with me. "I'm sure that, even within your world, Percy and Elias are not normal." She said sadly.

"You should have said something anyway." Grover told her.

"I'm sorry." mom apologized. Grover just sighed.

"Sorry might not cut it, Mrs. Jackson. You put them in more danger than they already would have been normally."

"I know." mom sadly responded.

_"Jesus..."_ Eli muttered.

All I could think to say after a few moments of tense silence was, "So, you and our mom... know each other?"

Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching us?"

"Keeping tabs on you, Percy. I had no idea about Elias. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I _am_ your friend."

_"Awww."_ Eli gushed. I sent a probing bit of emotion at him, trying to figure out why my twin was so calm right now, when normally he would be freaking out big time. He sent me back the emotional equivalent of a shrug.

"Urn ... what _are_ you, exactly?" I asked Grover.

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"

_"I wouldn't have said that. I get the feeling that is an insult to him"_ Elias told me in warning.

Grover let out a sharp, throaty _"Blaa-ha-ha!"_

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

_"Adorable!"_ Elias exclaimed. He loved animals, and as it turns out, Grover is half animal.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a _goat_ from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

_"Blaa-ha-ha!_ There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

_"See."_ Elias laughed

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a _myth,_ Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you _admit_ there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

_"Are you really doing this_ now _of all times? Is this really the time to do this? I mean, really? Percy?"_ Elias scolded me, irritated. I ignored him for the moment. _"Oh, of course! Ignore your long suffering twin! I'm just chopped liver, after all!"_

"Of course." Grover said.

"Then why-" I tried.

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I- wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

" _Lovely!"_ my brother exclaimed in slight hysteria.

"Percy, Elias," my mom said, "There's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after us?"

_"That's what I wan to know, too!"_

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!" Mom scolded him.

_"The fuck?!"_ Elias yelped. I agreed with my twin on that one.

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

Elias and I tried to wrap our mind(s) around what was happening, but we couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. Elias, on the other hand...

_"I don't dream, Percy. I walk into_ other _people's dreams."_ he told me seriously.

'What?' I asked him

" _I'll tell you later."_

Our mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want us to go."

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're both in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means, the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die." at that Elias muttered something to himself that sounded like 'I knew it!'

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in _me._ "

"I meant _you,_ like 'someone.' Not you, _you._ "

_"What?"_ Elias asked no one in particular. Grover's backtracking had confused both of us.

"Boys!" our mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm. "What was that?" I asked.

_"Oh geez"_ Eli muttered, starting to get really scared

"We're almost there," our mother said, ignoring my question.

"Another mile. Please. Please. Please." Grover was chanting to himself.

I didn't know where _there_ was, neither did my twin, but we found ourselves leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness, the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. Our shared limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really _hadn't_ been human. She'd meant to kill us. Then we both thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown us. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of our neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!,_ and our car exploded. I remember feeling weightless, like we were being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

_"Did anyone get the plate of the elephant?"_ Eli asked, dazed.

"Percy! Elias!" mom shouted.

"We're okay..."

I tried to shake off the daze. We weren't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning.

That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to us in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, 'No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!' Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Boys," our mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made our skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns. Elias was instantly and infinitely more aware and no longer dazed at the sight. I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," our mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

Our mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried ours. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" our mother told us. "Percy you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

_"What?"_ Elias and I both asked as one, creating an odd ring to our voice.

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof we saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill. "That's the property line," our mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"MOM!" Eli shouted.

"No!" _I_ shouted. "You _are_ coming with us. Help us carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't_ be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands, huge meaty hands were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns.

_"Oh god..."_ Elias gasped as he came to a realization.

"He doesn't want _us_ ," my mother told me. "He wants _you two._ Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..." I tried.

"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."

I got mad, then mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull. I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you"

"Mom! We are not leaving you. Help us with Grover." I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but we couldn't have carried him very far if mom hadn't come to our aid. Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass. Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazines bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear. I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms, which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener. I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real. I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's"

"Oh my god..." Elias yelped. He was more than hysterical at this point. I know that it's bad of me, but I was surprised that he hadn't holed himself up in our shared mind by now.

"Pasiphae's son," our mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind us again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

_Not a scratch,_ I remembered Gabe saying.

'Oops.'

"Percy," mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you two near me."

"Keeping us near you?"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. Our mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, neither did my brother, but we had the feeling she was right it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on us. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat. He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at our chest. The fear in our stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held our ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward us this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as our mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it. The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eying our mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover. Elias was now reduced to sobbing in terror and worry.

"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!" We both cried.

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around our mother's neck, and she dissolved before our eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.

"No!" We screamed before Eli passed out from everything.

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.

I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

'How did I do that?' I wondered briefly.

I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils. The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off. I wished Eli was awake to help

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of our mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then _snap!_

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen our mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, to pas out like my twin, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for our mother, but I held on to Grover I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.

They both looked down at me, and the girl said something I didn't catch, trying to check on my brother.

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

I finally followed Elias into dreamland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~
> 
> Please comment and favorite!
> 
> Fan art get people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
> 
> TTFN!


	5. Elias Plays Pinochle with a Horse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am excited for your response to this chapter! It is, so far, the most heavily edited chapter to date. Lots of new content.
> 
> Fun fact: I got nothing this time. 
> 
> Disclaimer: See CH. 1

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, Elias still out of it each time, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak, "What?"

She looked around, as if afraid someone would over-hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."

Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.

...~...

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

...~...

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt. I then realized that Elias was awake now.

_"Ouch... Switch with me. You'll hurt less."_ Elias said as he gently shuffled me off to the side in our shared mindscape. It was always strange when we got hurt and we switched. Sensations were still felt, things were still tasted, sounds were still heard. The thing was though, everything in our mindscape was muted. It was almost the same as hearing sounds through a wall, muted, but still audible and discernable. A part of our minds compensated for that by parroting back the sounds directly to the other. Like an intercom. Tastes and sensations were different. There is no real way to parrot back taste, smell, and sensations through an intercom in real life, so the same holds true to Elias and I.

On the table next to us was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. Elias immediately wanted to eat the cherry first. He always did when we got McDonalds' shakes.

Our hand was so weak he almost dropped the glass once he got our fingers around it.

"Careful," a familiar voice said. Elias looked over and blinked in surprise.

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.

_"So maybe we'd had a nightmare. Maybe mom is okay. We are still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And..."_ I said to my twin. He was uncertain.

'I'm not so sure...' he thought back, grimly.

"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in our lap.

'See...' was all Eli cold say to me at that, not trying to be mean or cruel, just stating the harsh truth.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.

"Pasiphae's son." Elias stated to no one, not calling the minotaur by name, having distantly remembered that names held power in Greek mythology.

"Um... You're Elias, right?" Grover asked, flinching and looking away when Elias looked up to stare at him with matte sea-green eyes that gave nothing away.

"Greetings, Grover. Call me Eli. You are Percy's best friend that I've known all school year, you've been a good friend to us. So please, no need to be formal." Elias said, slightly awkward. He had defaulted to a slightly formal way of speaking, as he normally did when he was unsure how to talk to someone.

Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"I remember our mother sacrificing herself to save us." Elias stated evenly, but inside he was devastated. We both were.

Grover looked down.

"Do you know where my glasses are? I am legally blind without them." Eli asked him. Grover rushed over to another table and picked up a hard, black velveteen eyeglass case.

"Your old ones broke and were so out of date, the closest thing to a doctor we have here, a fellow camper, Will Solace, was livid and ranted for two whole hours about subpar eye care." Grover said as he showed us the new pair. Eli's old ones were made out of lenses we had had since we were six and some wire Smelly Gabe had bent around them and then superglues to the lenses. He was cheap like that.

The new pair was made from a hard plastic reinforced internally with thick wire. The color of the frames was a darker green that would go great with Eli's eye color. The lenses were now half moon shaped instead of circular. Elias immediately loved them.

My twin stared across the meadow in amazement. He had never had clearer vision than with his new glasses. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

'Our mother is gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.' I kept that thought to myself, not wanting to hurt my brother than he already was.

"Mom would have loved it here." Eli muttered softly to himself, but Grover still heard it.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world."

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I said to Elias, _"Well, that settles it."_

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.

'I bet that they are adorable.' Eli told me. He had already accepted everything. He was always like that, accepting and a bit to passive. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaur's. All that meant was that our mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

We were alone. Orphans. We would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. We would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something. Gabe would never let us succeed in life, and I would make sure Eli became a doctor. It was my job as the older twin to watch over and help Elias.

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.

Elias said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did our mother ask you to protect us?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."

"Our mother was an, apparently, well informed adult. Her decisions and sacrifice was her own. It. Was. Not. Your. Fault." Elias emphasized, trying to make sure Grover knew that we didn't blame him. Eli tried to sit up more but we were hit with a massive dizzy spell

"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped Elias hold our glass and put the straw to our lips.

I recoiled within our mindscape at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-our mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, our whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if mom had just brushed her hand against our cheek, given us a cookie the way she used to when we were small, and told us everything was going to be okay.

My twin, on the other hand, tasted our mother's homemade blue pomegranate and peach smoothies with whipped cream and chopped cherries on top. She always made them when he was felling ignored and forgotten.

Before we knew it, Elias had drained the glass. We stared into it, I was sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted. Elias was sure that it had been cold. Eli shrugged off his confusion, though.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

Eli made a sound of confirmation.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded wistful.

"Percy tasted our mom's homemade chocolate chip cookies, while I tasted her homemade pomegranate and peach smoothie's." My brother told our friend, kindly.

He sighed. "And how do you feel?"

"Like I could out run you on enchilada day." Eli joked. Grover smiled at us.

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"

"What do you mean?" Eli asked as he fished out the cherry from the ice, along with an ice cube to suck on. Grover just shook his head. He looked like he wanted to ask us something. Elias had an idea of what it was. "You want to know why I'm talking to you and not Percy." my twin stated. Grover looked shocked. "Things are muted in our shared mindscape, so I took over so Percy wouldn't have to deal with the pain we woke up with anymore. Also, it's my day to have control of our body." He explained quickly and simply.

Grover blinked in understanding and then took the empty glass from Eli gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse. Our legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but Elias held on to it. We'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. We weren't going to let it go. As we came around the opposite end of the house, Eli gave a gasp.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, My brother and I simply couldn't process everything we were seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture-an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless we were hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.

"Amazing." Elias said in awe. I echoed him. It was stunning.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them. Elias sent me amusement when I spotted her.

The man facing us was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels-

_"What do you call them?, hubbubs?"_ I asked. Elias was confused for a split second before he caught on.

'No, cherubs.'

_"That's it."_ Elias sent me a mental eye roll.

He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except Eli and I both got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even our step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to us. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... ."

He pointed at the guy whose back was to us.

First, we realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then we recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" Elias gasped in shock and surprise.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at us. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."

"Actually, Mr. Brunner, I'm Elias. Percy's extremely conjoined twin." Elias said with a sigh. We both got the feeling that people would get us confused a lot. Mr. Brunner looked slightly flustered at that.

He offered us a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at us with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you. Either of you. You two are certainly and odd case, though. I've never seen twins like you before." Mr. D looked at us like he could see me through Elias.

"Neither have I, sir." Elias said with respect. Mr. D looked at Eli with the tiniest bit of approval.

"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Elias, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on their bunk? We'll be putting them in cabin eleven for now."

Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."

She was probably our age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take us down in a fight.

She glanced at the minotaur horn in our hands, then back at us. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a mino-taur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.

Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."

Elias laughed and then said. "Sorry, Percy tends to do that." She tried to look Elias in the eyes as she nodded her acceptance of the apology, but couldn't. Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So, I take it your real name isn't Mr. Brunner, then?" Elias asked our former Latin teacher.

"I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"The trainer of heroes that became immortal." Eli stated. I was going to stay silent, Eli was in his element. Verbal sparring matches were his thing. My twin had a way with words that was always fun to watch. Also, I was in to much shock about everything. If I didn't need to, I wasn't going to think.

Chiron looked shocked. "Why, yes."

"I am the studious twin. Percy is the athletic one. I wish to become a doctor, so Percy has me do most of our studying. Though, he did most of the studying in your class. That is a sign of how great of a teacher you are, sir." Elias complimented our former teacher. Eli turned to the camp director. "And Mr. D ... that stands for something. I won't ask. Names have power."

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at Elias with a glint in his eyes. "You are certainly smarter than most brats, I'll give you that, at least."

"I try, sir." Elias said dryly.

"I must say, you two," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call, sir?" Elias asked.

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you, well, Percy. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met your brother. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher our first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class. Elias sent a feeling of confirmation.

"You came to Yancy just to teach my twin?" Eli asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test." Elias considered what we had heard.

"Seems like a fair test." My twin conceded.

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

'Careful, brother, he's not what he appears, I think.' Elias thought to ne.

" _What do you mean?"_ I asked him. he just sent a feeling of wait and see.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed us suspiciously.

Yes, sir. I played a few times with some lovely grandmothers at the park." Elias confirmed.

"Well," he told Elias, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules." That felt like a backhanded complement. Elias snorted inwardly. He was starting to dislike the camp director.

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Chiron smiled at us sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Elias, Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'

"She said ..." Elias started as I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told us that she was afraid to send us here, even though our father had wanted her to. She said that once we were here, we probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep us close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"Yes, sir." Elias placed his bid.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

_"Orientation film?"_ I asked. Elias sent me his own confusion.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy and Elias. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lads. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."

"Why does that not surprise me anymore?" Elias muttered to himself as he looked at the horn. "Actually, sirs, it was Percy who fought Pasiphae's son. I am not a fighter. In fact, I did the equivalent to fainting under the pressure." He admitted

There was silence for a few seconds. "Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"I take it all of the Greek "myths" are true then?" Elias asked, making air quotes.

Mr. D snorted. 'You catch on quick, for a mortal." he cackled, getting a disapproving look from Chiron.

I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called my twin mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my metaphorical throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut. Elias affirmed my feeling with his own. Mr. D waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

Elias blinked in mute shock, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder. My brother an I were starting to be done with all of this.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at us. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," Eli repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tear-ing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"You're Dionysus," My brother said. "The god of wine and madness."

Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"Y-yes, Mr. D."

"Then, well, duh! Percy and Elias Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"

"Well, no sir. You're not my definition of beauty." Elias quipped, getting annoyed. I was rolling from laughter.

"Ha! I'm starting to like you, kid!" Mr. D laughed. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

Eli and I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to us. "Cabin eleven, Jackson. And mind your manners."

"Yes, sir."

Mr. D swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miser-ably.

"Will Grover be okay?" Elias asked Chiron.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," my twin said. "I have the feeling I need to play catch up all of the sudden.

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? In America?"

"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."

"The what?"

"Come now, boys. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."

It was all too much, especially the fact that my brother and I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if we were part of some club. Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who even are my brother and I anymore?" Elias asked more to himself. Chiron decided to answer anyway.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate." And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

Elias I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk. Elias wasn't surprised like I was though. He sent me some basic information and then I realized why he was taking the sight so well.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Elias Jackson. Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers. And do not worry. Mr. D and I have taken the liberty of alerting the other campers about at least the bare minimum of your situation that we understand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~
> 
> Please comment and favorite!
> 
> Fan art get people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
> 
> TTFN!


	6. First Day at Camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, Batman! This on was a doozy to edit! I combined the original chapter 6 and seven of Lightening Thief into one, since I nixed quite a bit of dialogue. You'll see what I mean. 
> 
> I hope none of you mind the repeating notes that appear temporarily on the latest chapter. I use the same end of chapter note throughout, with tiny variations here and there.
> 
> ATTENTION! I reply to comments, so go check the comment section out! I would love to open up some dialogue between us! If you have a FFN account, PM me! my username there is savannahamminga.
> 
> Fun fact: Only the seeds of the pomegranate are edible.
> 
> Disclaimer: See CH.1

Elias walked beside Chiron as the centaur gave us the tour. We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. A blond boy with sun kissed skin said, "That's them." Eli looked at the boy for a few seconds then turned back to the path.

Most of the campers were older than us. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. Elias met there stares with a stare of his own, making them look away quickly.

Elias looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than we'd realized-four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. Eli was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught our eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and we got the distinct impression that we were being watched.

"Come along, boys" Chiron said "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told us the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

Eli watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D. Elias gave me a mental rub on the back, trying to cheer me up.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" my twin asked Chiron. "He was a good protector."

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Elias. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that. What had happened was out of his control."

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"Our mother was a well informed adult. She made her own choices. Grover should not be blamed for things he could not control. To be blamed is an insult." Elias said, heatedly. Chiron blinked in surprise.

"You are truly very different from your twin..." he trailed off.

"The goddess of the hunt and moon is the twin of the god of the sun and medicine, is she not? They are different from each other, too." Elias pointed out mildly. My brother looked at a satyr "How old is Grover, if I may ask?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

"And he's in sixth grade?"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Elias. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

"I see." Elias stated simply.

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accom-plished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career... ."

"That's not fair of you to say, sir. Everyone makes mistakes. It is how we learn and grow. I am shocked that _you_ of all beings would say such a thing!" Elias told the centaur, scandalized. "You after all, are the trainer of heroes!"

Chiron looked away quickly, uncomfortable. "Let's move along, shall we? I have yet to how you boys the woods."

I had wanted my twin to ask about the Underworld, if it was real. I wanted to find a way to bring our mother back.

'Percy, please. now is not the time. I'll read some of the books here and learn more. I want her back, too. We have to be smart about this.' He told me. I conceded his point. I tended to rush into things.

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans. Elias was in awe. He couldn't wait to spend time in there.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" Elias asked. "Armed with what, sir"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"Sir?"

"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."

"I am a pacifist, sir. You better wait until Percy is back in control. He's the fighter. I'm more of the medic."

"Oh? I see, then." Chiron was surprised, but hid it quickly. "Anyhow, please, call me Chiron." the centaur said.

"I'll try, sir." Elias quipped, grinning. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables which Chiron didn't seem to like very much. Elias snorted at the face Chiron made when we were at the stables and the hero trainer shot him a look. Eli held our hands up in surrender, grinning widely. Chiron had just shook his head at that with a rather fond smile and an eye roll. We saw the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" Elias asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

'Not usually lethal, he says.' Eli said sarcastically to me. I just laughed at my twin's exasperation at everything.

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

Finally, he showed us the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dot-ted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds (that Elias fell in love with), and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smol-dered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. "Hello, little miss!" Elias greeted her to the shock of both Chiron and the girl. We both got the feeling that it wasn't normal for people to talk to the girl.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" Elias guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

Elias stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. Elias peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he could pull us back, we caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, yet welcoming, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on our shoulder and said, "Come along, boys." Elias was thoughtful.

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on us and gave an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

My brother kept walking, not giving her the time of day. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," he observed.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here." Elias nodded his understanding. "Oh, look," the centaur said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

The blond girl we'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached her, she looked us over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.

Elias looked at the book she was reading. I thought both of our dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book. 'That really is Greek, dearest brother of mine' Elias confirmed.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take the twins from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told us, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?

'A caduceus. It was originally Apollo's, but he and Hermes traded. I'm not sure what was traded, though. I'll have to find it in that book again.' Elias informed me.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, boys. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

Elias stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at us, sizing us up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

Elias stepped through the door confidently, not letting anything show on our face, his matte eyes sharp.

Annabeth announced, "Percy and Elias Jackson, meet cabin eleven." We got stares. I remember that all of the campers had been informed of our unique situation.

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy and Elias. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash. Elias, for a split second, felt flustered for some reason.

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. Eli glanced over and we could've sworn she was blushing. She saw us looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"Why for now? Eli asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

"That makes sense." Elias said, evenly. He looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick our pockets. Elias looked those campers in the eyes for a few seconds, they quickly looked away. "How long will my brother and I be here?" he asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take, if I may ask?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told us. "I'll show you the volleyball court." She grabbed our wrist and dragged us outside. We could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind us. When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"Pardon me?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought one of you was the one."

"What's your problem, Miss Chase?" Elias asked. "We have had a long few days, and I wish we could forget them and-"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth cut him off. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

"Our mother was killed, Miss Chase. This, whatever it is or means, is not a game." Elias said, coolly looking her in her storm grey eyes. She looked away first.

"I'm sorry." she apologized.

"I take it that all of the human's here are Demigods, then. If this is not all some weird hallucination." Elias stated, changing the subject.

"You wouldn't have survived the ambrosia and nectar otherwise." She told us

"Ambrosia and nectar." my twin deadpanned.

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead."

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start. Elias was going through all of his knowledge of Greek mythology as fast as he could.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

Eli looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which Elias and I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feel-ing it was a worse curse than it sounded and my brother agreed. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward us. "Who's this little runt?"

"Elias and Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

"The god of war." Elias said as he looked her over

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No, it's just that I should of known. You look the part. Strong and intimidating, Miss Clarisse." he said with a bow. It seemed to pacify her and she let us go, to Annabeth's shock.

...~...

She showed us a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man. Elias wanted to visit again later), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough. Eli wanted no part of that.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

Elias looked into the lake.

He wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at us from the bottom, so our heart skipped a beat when we noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if we were a long-lost friend.

Elias waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts." Elias stopped immediately. Who is your godly parent then?" he asked

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"That's interesting." Eli said noncommittally. He didn't have an opinion one way or another about that, while I just wanted to go home.

We could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard our stomach growl. She told us to go on, she'd catch us later. Elias left her on the pier, trac-ing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

'She seems okay, if a bit grating' Eli told me.

" _I like her, she seems cool."_ I responded. My twin just snorted.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to us as Eli walked over to our spot on the floor and plopped down with our minotaur horn.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact. Eli made sure not to look him in the eyes.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part. Elias flushed, touched. He said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to is, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"You could say that. Before to day Percy and I didn't believe in the gods" Elias sighed

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything. Elias decided that it was a touchy subject and decided to drop it. "I'm surprised you haven't asked about my twin and I yet. I get the feeling we aren't a normal case, even among gods." Elias joked dryly.

"I figured Chiron and Mr. D would have you explain at dinner." Luke said.

"I'm Elias, by the way. I'm the twin with tact." Eli grinned

_"Hey!"_ I yelped. " _I so have tact!"_ Elias sent a feeling of amusement and disbelief. I huffed.

"Nice to meet you, Elias." Luke grinned back. Eli looked away.

"You can call me Eli." He muttered.

"Sure thing. Dinner should be right about... now" Luke mentioned.

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before. Elias blinked.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course Eli and I were dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down. 'Probably Artemis', then' Elias pondered.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. We saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill. 'Dryads.' Eli observed,this time I was the one to blink in shock 'Don't steal my thing.' I laughed

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. Elias opted to sit on the ground, getting covert grateful looks from the rest of the Hermes cabin.

We saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honeyblond hair.

Clarisse sat behind us at Ares's table. She gave us a once over and looked away, continuing to mess around with the other Ares kids.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, pomegranates, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! I was sad because I wouldn't get to taste it. Elias was a vegetarian. He didn't stop _me_ from eating meats, though. He had said it would be unfair, our situation was difficult as it was.'There will probably be barbecue tomorrow, too.' Elias consoled me.

Our glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want. Nonalcoholic, of course."

Elias said, "Blue strawberry-banana smoothie, please."

The glass filled with blue icy liquid.

Eli took a cautious sip. Perfect. He hummed in appreciation.

We drank a toast to our mother.

_"She's not gone."_ I told both myself and my twin. _"Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday..."_

"Here you go, Elias," Luke said, handing us a platter of smoked brisket.

"Actually, Luke, I'm a vegetarian. _Percy_ isn't, though." Elias informed him.

Luke looked slightly flushed for a second. "Sorry!" Elias chuckled.

"It's fine, you didn't know. Pass me some salad and a pomegranate or two. _I_ , unlike my darling twin brother don't eat much."

Eli loaded his plate and was delighted when he was handed a bowl filled to the brim with pomegranate seeds. He looked up to find a dryad giving him a thumbs up and a wink. He noticed everyone getting up with their plates and going to the fire.

"Come on," Luke told him, helping us up.

As we got closer, we saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in our ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell." Elias shivered the tiniest bit. I sent him a curious feeling at that. He just sent me a mental eye roll.

"Fascinating."

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

We were next. Elias had decided who to give his offerings to. I agreed with the first one, the second and third ones confused me.

"To our father, whomever he may be." He tossed in the crispiest looking piece of lettuce "And to Lord Hades and his wife, Lady Persephone." he said as he offered them a handful of pomegranate seeds.

When Elias caught a whiff of the smoke we were shocked.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. We could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter and Elias Johnson."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, _Percy_ and Elias Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. They have something to explain to everyone." Elias stood up.

"Greetings, everyone, I am Elias. My twin, Percy, and I are probably not what anyone would expect. He and I are two souls that share one body. We also share most of a mind. We have no idea how, or why, all we know is that we do.

A few things you should know about us, to tell which twin is in control, is that I wear glasses and Percy doesn't. My eyes are an odd matte, opaque sea-green color while Percy's is a glossy, normal sea-green color. I am a pacifist and wish to become a doctor, while Percy enjoys fighting and sports. and Lastly, Percy is in control most of the time. I tend to stay within our shared mind, observing rather than participating. If you _do_ want to get to know me, just ask for me and I'm sure my brother will take the back seat for a bit. He says I don't get out much as it is, so I'm sure he will be delighted" Elias joked with a jaunty grin and wink, making quite a few people laugh.

He wasn't wrong.

Mr. D stood up and clapped, getting everyone's attention again "Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a singalong. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at us anymore. I felt that I was home, as did my brother. He made fast friends with an Apollo kid named Will Solace. the two of them talked about medicine. Will was sure that Elias and I were children of Apollo, too. Due to the fact Elias knew a lot about medicine and actually knew how to use a bow. (Mom had one a year of once a week archery lessons from a raffle once. Eli was the one with archery skills while I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at 10 feet away.) Elias wasn't as sure about Will's theory. My twin had an idea of who it might be, but wasn't sharing

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. Elias and I didn't realize how exhausted we were until he collapsed on to our borrowed sleeping bag.

Our fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. We thought about our mom, but they were good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read us when we were little, the way she would tell us not to let the bedbugs bite. Elias switched back with me.

When I closed our eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was our first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish we'd known how briefly we would get to enjoy our new home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~
> 
> Please comment and favorite!
> 
> Fan art gets people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
> 
> TTFN!


	7. Capture the Flag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to more than likely mess up canon a bit. I may also change some back stories a bit. I haven't read all of the books, so I'm reading them as I go.
> 
> I have a question. Do you guys want me to put Interludes from Eli's Pov in the story? Or do you want me to make a separate story from his pov?
> 
> Also, can you guess what Eli is hiding? Besides the obvious that gets revealed this chapter.
> 
> Fun Fact: I am mostly writing this Fic at around 1 am. Yay for insomnia!
> 
> Disclaimer: See CH. 1

The next few days my twin and I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that we were getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

Each morning we took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. We found out that our brains were hardwired for Ancient Greek.

The rest of the day, we'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something _I_ was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery, but he found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail. He was thrilled that Eli could at least hit the target dead center eight out of ten times.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree. Elias had laughed himself silly at that thought.

And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me. She hated me for some reason. She actually seemed to like my twin, though.

The only thing _I_ really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur. Eli tended t nap while we were canoeing, for some reason it made him sleepy. He thought it was the feel of the waves rocking him to sleep.

We knew the senior campers and counselors were watching us, trying to decide who our dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork or-gods forbid- Dionysus's way with vine plants. Eli was interested in medicine and could shoot a bow. He also was good at gardening, arts and crafts, and could play the piano. He had always been the more artsy member of our family. (I wasn't including smelly Gabe in our family). Will Solace, Eli's only friend so far, was dead set on us being Apollo kids. Eli was sure that we weren't, but wouldn't tell me who he thought our father was. We found out that Will was two years younger than us, making him ten, but he had been at the camp since he was five. He was the best medic at camp.

Elias would read everything he could to find a way to bring our mother back.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. Elias loved it at camp. We would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of our meal into the fire, and I would try to feel some connection to our real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. Elias would always have me give offerings to Hades and his wife as well. He wouldn't say why, though, just that I shouldn't worry. He knew Hades wasn't our father.

I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't dad, who-ever he was, make a phone appear? Elias, as always, was ambivalent about our father. He really did not care who our father was.

...~...

Thursday afternoon, three days after we'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Every-body from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor. Elias was sitting out the sword lessons, he preferred archery.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in our hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time. Elias had actually giggled at that.

"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.

The camper snorted. Elias had been giggling us a storm.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" Whap! "Lunge!" Whap! "Now, back!" Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward. Elias stopped groaning in our shared pain.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy and Elias don't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Great, I thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded. Cue more giggles from my twin.

The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarm-ing technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of our hand.

"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"

I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

The sword grew heavy in our hand. The balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting our whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang.

Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers were silent. Elias blinked.

I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword... And Elias with a bow that fit him.."

...~...

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, rest-ing from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten my twin and I. Mine and Elias' shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off our forearms. Elias was ranting at me to never go on that thing again.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.

"Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask.

 _"Holy shit! Have you_ finally _learned_ tact _?"_ Eli asked me. I ignored him.

"He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course we'd want you along!" My brother agreeing with me.

Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

 _"Told you"_ Elias said, making me recall our first day, when he had figured it out.

"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."

"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades."

 _"There are also the ladies. Hestia, Hera, and Demeter. I wonder why Hestia and Demeter don't have cabins."_ Elias pondered more to himself.

"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Lovely _way to figure that out."_ Elias quipped, unimpressed.

"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."

"Uh-huh."

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that." Elias had jolted at that. He waved my curiosity off, not saying anything.

"But Zeus and Poseidon, they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

 _"Yes, it is."_ Elias told me solemnly

Grover nodded.

"And the brothers kept their word-no kids?"

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo-he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia .. . well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"But that isn't fair.' It wasn't the little girl's fault."

Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to tor-ment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance, Elias lost in thoughts that I could not hear.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl Elias and I's age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much. I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved our mother?

"Grover," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

 _"The magician?"_ Eli snorted.

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close... . Percy, you're not seriously thinking-"

"No," I said. "I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found my twin and I. Chiron said you thought we might be something special."

Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were-you know-you'd never ever be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Or even Apollo, like Will is hoping for. Don't worry.

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

"Elias says Nemesis is a goddess, not a god. You got the gender wrong." I told Grover. He promptly blushed in embarrassment.

...~...

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"

"Yeah."

"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"

"Not always," he said. "But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do- repaint the flag?"

He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."

"Whose side are we on?"

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. Elias spluttered. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded- shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities-in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

 _"Don't be mean, Percy"_ my twin chided. _"Clarisse is actually quite lovely in her own way."_ I had no idea what to say to that.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here- Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

" _I'm glad I'm sitting this one out."_ Elias told me, smug.

Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

She kept marching.

"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"

"Border patrol, whatever that means."

"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."

She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team." my brother snorted in derision, not impressed with Annabeth.

...~...

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Annabeth stationed us next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.

Standing there with only my twin for company, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on our hand like a bowling ball.

There was no way anybody would actually attack us, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right? Elias rolled his eyes.

Far away, the conch horn blew. We heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. Will raced past us like a deer, waved , leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

'Great. we'll miss all the fun, as usual.' I thought.

_"You may have just jinxed us, dear brother."_

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up our spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling some-thing was stalking us. Elias was on high alert.

Then the growling stopped. We felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.

 _"Flocking hell!"_ Eli cursed.

Her eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords-not that that made either Elias or I feel any better.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.

 _"Oh joy."_ my twin deadpanned.

I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur. They surrounded us, and Clarisse thrust at meus with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over our body. Our hair stood on end. Our shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back. Eli was swearing up a storm and making plans.

Another Ares guy slammed us in the chest with the butt of his sword and we hit the dirt.

They could've kicked us into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."

 _"Quick! switch with me!"_ Elias urged. I knew he now had a plan.

"Greetings, Miss. Clarisse." Eli said to her. She paused. "Lovely evening, isn't it. You are aware the flag is that way." Elias pointed

"Yeah, but we wanted to welcome your brother, Prissy, in the proper Ares fashion."

"I see. I'm afraid I cannot let that happen. Might I interest you in an embarrassing story some time, then?" Elias asked them.

Then we heard yelling, elated screams, and saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. Clarisse muttered a curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

"All is fair in love and war, Clarisse!" Eli called as the went after Luke. "All is fair."

Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We'd won.

Elias was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to us in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."

He looked, but she wasn't there. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

"Greetings, Miss Chase. Did you enjoy the show, then?" Elias asked her stiffly.

"I told you, Athena always has a plan."

"Quite." Eli snorted.

We heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, Elias and I had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Annabeth drew her sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

It was looking straight at us.

Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Elias, run!"

She tried to step in front of us, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her-an enormous shadow with teeth- and just as it hit us, as Elias stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through our armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at our feet.

By some miracle, we were still alive. I didn't want Eli to look underneath the ruins of our shredded armor. Our chest felt warm and wet, and we knew we were badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned us into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

Will rushed over to us. "Eli! Percy! Don't move!" He said while trying to get the shredded armor off of our body.

"Di immortales!" Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

"Will, move. I have an idea." Eli gently and painfully pushed the son of Apollo away, despite Will's protests.

Elias stumbled over to the stream and we instantly felt better. I could feel the cuts on our chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

Elias looked at our feet resolutely.

"Eli..." Will trailed off.

"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced.

All around us, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.

Elias was silent while I was confused.

"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

 _"_ _Gods damn_ _it!_ I hate it when I'm right" Elias just groaned. I was in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~
> 
> Please comment and favorite!
> 
> Fan art get people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
> 
> TTFN!


	8. Quests and Oracles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter: I experiment with Elias' POV!
> 
> Also, This is the longest chapter yet!
> 
> Fun Fact: Elias' name was inspired by the anime 'The Ancient Magus' Bride'. I love that anime. I cry so much while watching it! 
> 
> Disclaimer: see CH.1

Percy's POV:

The next morning, Chiron moved us to cabin three.

We didn't have to share with anybody (except the obvious). We had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. Also Elias' things: A pure gold rose bloom Will had a Hephaestus kid make for him, a sketchbook (Already filled with rough sketches of other campers to be finished at a later date) with drawing supplies, glass bead necklace and bracelets Eli had made, and a clay pot filled with glazed and painted clay medallions Eli had made with some clay he liked to have us carry around to help him think.

Eli had gone to the camp scrap(Junk) yard and found a couple of bookcases. We placed the Minotaur horn on my book case and the Rose on his. The pot went in between the cases, and the jewelry on a bot of fishing line hung along the wall. Elias was determined to make the cabin homey to make me feel better.

We got to sit at our own dinner table (Eli was glad we no longer had to sit on the ground), pick all our own activities, call "lights out" whenever we felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

And _I_ was absolutely miserable.

Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid, or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood and sharing a body with your younger twin brother, we'd been separated out as if we had some rare disease. Elias was always trying to take my mind off of it, but it didn't work. In fact, it made me feel worse. He was always taking care of me. I felt like I was failing him somehow.

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but we got the feeling they were all talking about it behind our back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that we were the sons of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill us. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers, except Grover and Will, steered clear of us as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me because of our parentage, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. Elias was excited about that for some reason. Luke pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

Annabeth still taught us Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time Elias or I said something, she scowled at us, as if we'd just poked her between the eyes.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan ..." Elias was not amused or impressed. I got the distinct impression that they disliked each other.

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her staring at Eli whenever he was out made the both of u uncomfortable. She down right gave me death glares for some reason. My twin and I had no idea why she hated me.

I knew somebody at camp resented us, because one night we came into our cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took about half an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page and Elias was himself struggling to make sense of the letters on the page.

BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER

FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circum-stances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child with multiple personalities who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with informa-tion to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled in black marker.

_"I don't think that we were careful enough around him."_ Elias deadpanned, resigned. I could feel his exhaustion. I could tell how much everything was weighing on him. It was scary. Elias never let me know how much things affected him. _Never._

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in our bunk bed in the middle of our semi-empty cabin.

"Lights out," I told myself miserably, staring at the golden rose. Eli retreated into his part of our mind.

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.

I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and dark-ness swallowed me.

I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. Our body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.

I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in?"

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you two."

"Why?"

"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble. I semi retreated into our mind and mentally 'poked' the nebulous 'mass' that was a sleeping Elias. It gave a jolt and solidified into my twin. I noticed that he now had shoulder length hair.

"Good morning, brother dearest. It's been a while since you have visited me in my part of our shared mind space. Something wrong?" He tilted his head.

"Mr. D wants to see us. I figured you should handle this." I said, looking him in his eyes.

"I suppose..." Elias said teasingly with a grin.

...~...

Elias' POV:

For days, I had been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that My dearest twin and I were declared the sons of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have Demi-god children, I figured it was a crime for us just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish Percy and I for the simple crime of existing, and now Mr. D had called us for Hermes to deliver the verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. "Will the rain hit the camp?" I asked. Grover jumped, not expecting me to speak up.

"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed at the storm. "Really?" I got the feeling that it wouldn't.

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does." He seemed nervous around me. "Why are you out, Elias?"

"Percy felt that I should handle this. He went back to sleep. I will share the memories of events later, when he is awake." the 'and if we survive this encounter' went unsaid. Grover let out a nervous bleat. I grinned.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Will waved at me and called out a good morning. I called a greeting back at him and he grinned like I had given him the sun. Ha. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm. I couldn't blame them/

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on our first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel-chair. I smiled at him. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air. "Good morning, sirs. Also to whom ever it is that I can not see." I greeted, settling into a more formal speech pattern. I fought a frown. I was fully aware that even my thoughts could be slightly stuffy when I was nervous. I was just like that, for some reason.

"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."

I waited.

"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't be so stuffy. It makes me itch. So old Barnacle Beard is your dear old pops, huh?"

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.

"Sorry, sir." I frowned.

Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

"I haven't met your twin yet, but I like you. Your clever and have spine, yet still respect the gods. If I had my way I would get rid of your twin somehow and make you my servant, Elias. At the very least your eyes are exotic." Mr. D eyed me.

'I need a mortal adult.' I thought, repressing a shudder, but said: "I would rather not be parted from my brother in quite such a way. I am rather, pardon the pun, attached to him."

Translation: Percy is my world and I love him. I would have no idea what to do without him.

"There is another option" Chiron said.

Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If Elias is still here when I get back, I'll go ahead and make him my servant." Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.

He snapped his fingers.

The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Elias, please. And Grover. Is your brother listening?"

We did.

Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"No, sir. I will share my memories with him later." I said, sheepish

"Tell me, Elias," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

Just hearing the name made me shudder.

"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, Percy and I would be dead. I am no use in a fight"

"You'll meet worse, Elias. Far worse, before you're both done."

"Done ... with what?"

"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"

I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.

I remained silent. I remembered the dream Percy showed me before I left our cabin.

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, correct?"

Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been strange, as if the sea and the sky are fighting. Then Percy talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And ... Percy has also been having these dreams."

"I knew it," Grover said.

"Hush, satyr" Chiron ordered. "Only Percy has been having dreams?" he asked me.

"I don't dream, sir. I walk into others' dreams. I believe it's because I am only a 'soul', for lack of a better term, without a body or mind all my own. I do not mind, not having dreams of my own. My dream walking has lead me to my best friend, Bianca. Also, as I told her once, one can still have a dream without having dreams, sir."

Chiron was looking at me as if he had never seen anything like me before. Grover was impatient and could no longer contain himself

"But it is their quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard, back on topic. "Nevertheless, Elias, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

"I see." I didn't see.

"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other light-ning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"And it's missing?" I was alarmed now.

"Stolen," Chiron said.

"By who?"

"By whom," Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you."

I stared at him with wide eyes. He looked away from my eyes, unnerved like everyone else. Even the gods were unnerved by their blank, dead, look.

"At least"-Chiron held up a hand-"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly-that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

I held my tongue.

"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly hav-ing the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."

"Do they even know about me?" I asked.

Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

"They do now. A case such as yours has never been seen before. The gods have no idea what to make of it. That has also been a source of tension among the gods."

"Oh dear..." I trailed off.

How could anyone accuse my brother or I of stealing a god's weapon? We couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted.

"Do you know why Zeus mistrusts your father?"

"My father and some other gods trapped Zeus with a golden net, to put things simply." I recalled.

"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threaten-ing war. And now, you've come along-the proverbial last straw."

"But, sir, my dear brother and I are just children!" I protested. Percy stirred briefly at my distress. I sent him calming emotions to lull him back to sleep.

"Elias," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... and also has a second soul residing in their body... wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

I could see Zeus' point, even if I did not like it. I said as much.

Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival and situation has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Elias?"

"Bad?" I guessed.

"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."

"Bad," I repeated.

"And you, Elias and Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky. I could see Will get hit in the face with the ball. I couldn't muster up the amusement to laugh at the humorous sight.

My brother and I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. Because of us. I was resolved.

"So we have to find the bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."

"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the sons of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"

"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is it, sir?"

"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"I see."

"You agree then?"

"Yes. Percy will too, I'm sure." I knew he would. My dear twin would be full of ire towards Zeus and would also use this as an opportunity to try and get our mother back. I was not adverse to that.

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Elias Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap-door.

I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.

I tilted my head, blinked and then climbed. My seemingly blank eyes staring forward.

The attic was filled with Greek hero paraphernalia: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things-severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969. I took it all in.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.  
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Looking at her sent chills up my brother's back that I was borrowing. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap-door, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

I looked her in the eyes, resolutely "What is the destiny of my brother and I?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.

My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.

Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall he betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The figures began to dissolve. It reformed into the image of Bianca.

...~...

"Well?" Chiron asked me once I returned.

I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said we would retrieve what was stolen."

Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"

"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed. "This is important."

My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She . .. she said we would go west and face a god who had turned. we would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Grover said.

Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell him.

What friend would betray Percy? He didn't have that many.

And the last line- He would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send him on a quest and tell him, Oh, by the way, you'll fail

How could I confess that?

"No," I said. "That's about it."

He studied my brother's face. "Very well, Elias. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.

"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do we go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Elias," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

"I have no idea, sir." I realy didn't. I knew who he was going to say it was, though.

Chiron sighed. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility." I knew that wasn't it. I had no idea how, though.

A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"

"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but-but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon... ."

"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Pun-ishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."

I held my tongue once more. I got the feeling they had forgotten, for a moment, that I share a body with Percy. Speaking of which. He woke up at that moment. I gently shoved him to the front and re-took my favorite place to be within our shared mind. I quickly shared the memory of the passed hour, except what the oracle had the image of Bianca tell me.

...~...

Percy's POV:

"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year." My mind was whirling.

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to under-stand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy and Elias must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

A strange fire burned in our stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill us three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault our mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me, my twin, and our dad for a theft we hadn't committed.

I was ready to take him on. Elias was resigned to our course, yet resolved to see it through, as well.

Besides, if our mother was in the Underworld ...

Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god. Elias told me to listen to that part more often.

Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips. Eli snorted in amusement at that.

The poor guy needed to complete a quest with us so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said we were destined to fail? This was suicide. Elias agreed.

"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."

"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades, and I imagine Poseidon does, they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"You're saying Elias and I are being used."

"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."

My dad needs me.

Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me. I was even more emotional about it than I would have been because Elias and I found out that Poseidon didn't even know about Elias before Camp.

I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."

"Eli suspected, too. He had hoped he wasn't right, though" I told the centaur. Chiron looked thoughtful at that.

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling us about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too. Eli had, as well.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "We're supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Chiron said.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check."

"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

_"It sounds so simple when you say it like that, dear brother of mine."_ Eli sighed.

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you, neither of us can."

"Oh ..." He shifted his hooves. "No ... it's just that satyrs and underground places ... well..."

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy and Elias. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."

I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. (Elias was grinning at me at that, I could tell) Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with us.

"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane-"

"No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"

I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."

Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.

Elias was shaking his head at me with his hand still over his face from where he had face-palmed. It amazed me what he could do in our shared mind.

"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."

"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Chiron.

Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

_"Oh_ joy" Elias said, sarcastically.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brains," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up." Elias rolled his eyes at her from within our mindscape.

"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?"

Her cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?"

The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get. Even Elias conceded that we needed help. Even if it had to be Annabeth.

"A for person team," I said. "That'll work."

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."

_"I have the feeling that this is going to be a long trip, brother"_

I had the feeling that Eli was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~
> 
> Please comment and favorite!
> 
> Fan art get people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
> 
> TTFN!


	9. We Ruin a Good Bus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super glad everyone seems to like Elias and this story. Eli is actually one of my top favorite Original Characters that I have created. The others, in no particular order are:  
> Flare Blaze (Tranformers OC)  
> Aster Strider (Homestuck OC)  
> Century Gothic Aster (Undertale OC)  
> and:  
> Setsuna A. Chase (One Piece OC)  
> This also doubles as the Fun Fact of the chapter~  
> Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

It didn't take me long to pack. We decided to leave the Minotaur horn in our cabin, which left us only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for us.

The camp store loaned us one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Elias thought that indicated over inflated egos. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions, whatever that meant. He gave Annabeth and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally. Eli had snorted and said dryly: _"Lovely, that is just lovely."_

Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

_"Be nice."_ Eli scolded me.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

_"You think of her a lot..."_ Elias said distractedly. I had no response

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when Elias and I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck. Elias blinked.

"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

_"Ha!"_

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when Luke was around. for some reason, so did my twin. Well, the mental equivalent, that is.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.

Luke said, "Maia!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.

Eli and I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent us for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving us a magic gift... It made me blush almost as much as Annabeth. Elias was also more flustered than usual.

"Hey, man," I said. "Thanks."

"Listen, Percy and Elias ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out.

After Luke was gone, I told her, "You're hyperventilating."

"Am not."

"You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"

_"Oh, I think somebody's got a crush."_ My brother teased. I had no idea if he was talking about me or Annabeth.

"Oh ... why do I want to go anywhere with you, Percy?"

She stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Luke meant well, boys. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch. Elias was chuckling.

"Maia!" he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos. Elias was busting a metaphorical gut, now.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Before I could follow, Chiron caught our arm. "I should have trained you better, boys," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason-they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish-"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing our dad had given us a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, or Annabeth's invisible cap.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to us. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

"Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be ... ?

I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in our hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals? How could it not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable."

"Good to know."

_"Of course. Nothing is ever easy or simple in our life, eh brother?"_ Elias asked me rhetorically.

"Now recap the pen." Chiron instructed.

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in our pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.

"You can't," Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the pen," he said. "It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."

Sure enough, the pen was there.

_"Holy shit."_

"Okay, that's extremely cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"

Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."

"Mist?"

"Yes. Read The Iliad. It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

I put Riptide back in our pocket.

"Hey!"

Will was waving frantically as he raced up the hill, stumbling slightly along the way. I moved aside so Elias could talk. He put on his glasses right as will skidded to a stop.

"I'm glad I caught you guys! I have a gift for you, Eli!" We noticed something shiny in his hand. He held up a golden charm bracelet. It had three charms: A bow, a rose, and a knife. Will grabbed our hand and pulled it up so he could put the bracelet on. "I had the kids over in the Hephaestus cabin make this with the help from an unclaimed kid from the Hermes cabin. It was originally made from silver and didn't do anything, but it seems as if my dad is giving you a bit of help. Just concentrate on the bow or the knife. The bow charm turns into one. Don't worry about needing arrows. Just make the motions of knocking an arrow and the bow will do the rest. It uses your own energy, though, so be careful. The knife is the same, just concentrate on it and it will turn into an actual blade. It's actually made out of Celestial Bronze now, despite the golden look." Will explained, for the first time ever looking Elias in the eyes and not looking away.

Elias blinked and then gave Will a hug. "Thank you, Will. I hope I won't have to use it."

"Be safe and comeback in one piece, doctors orders."

"I'll try."

Will let go of our hand, looking a little flushed. He made his way back down the hill. Elias slipped back into our mind.

For the first time, the quest felt real. We were actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. We were heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) we had no weapon stronger than a sword and a bow to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time before them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like ... before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appe-tizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up everything, right?"

_"We_ have _to work on your self worth."_ Elias sighed.

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed. Elias might be a little _too_ relaxed, though"

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur. Elias snorted.

...~...

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall. Elias was drifting off soon enough.

"So far so good," I told Annabeth. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

She gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain."

"Remind me again-why do you hate my brother and I so much?"

"I don't hate you."

"Could've fooled me."

She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"Why?"

She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives."

"Oh, forget it."

"Now, if she'd invented pizza-that I could understand."

"I said, forget it!"

"I don't think Eli likes you, though. I think you remind him of a neighbor girl we once had. She would always call us stupid and push us around. She skipped a few grades. He hated her." Annabeth had a thoughtful look at that.

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apart-ment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

I ripped it down before Annabeth and Grover could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close we were to our old apartment. On a normal day, mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or some-thing?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgot-ten to tell me.

_"Probably not much."_ my twin yawned.

"Your mom married Gabe for you," Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura... Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?" Eli shuddered.

"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy-if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it. 'I'll see her again', I thought. 'She isn't gone.' Elias curled around me like a cat.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were, entangled as they were with my twin's. I was glad he and Annabeth were with us, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason we decided to go on this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping our father out of trouble. The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting us, never helping mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed us because he needed a job done.

All I cared about was our mom. Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back. Elias curled tighter.

You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Oracle whispered in my mind. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Shut up, I told it.

...~...

The rain kept coming down.

We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared-core, stem, and all.

Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth, Elias, and I were too busy cracking up.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy- enchiladas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But my twin and I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over our shoulder, too. Eli was on high alert.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back-packs. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.

As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee. "Percy."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crum-pled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, Elias made a strangled sound and our heart skipped a beat

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat. Elias was swearing.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds-same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers. Elias' swearing got worse.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're lucky," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not."

_"Yeah, no shit."_ Eli snarked.

"All three of them," Grover whimpered. "Di immortales!"

"It's okay," Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open," Grover moaned.

"A back exit?" she suggested.

There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, head-ing for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"

She thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"

_"Hard to say, she says. Roof exit she says..."_ Eli muttered. I couldn't blame him. He was holding up incredibly well, considering he never handled stress well.

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

"I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat."

"What?"

"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"But you guys-"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth said. "You're a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."

"I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"

Our hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.

When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.

Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

_"Oh thank the gods."_

We were free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wail-ing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same-I guess those couldn't get any uglier- but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

_"Oh... Find me in the Alps!"_ Eli groaned.

The Furies surrounded Grover and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something, all right.

"He's not here!" Annabeth yelled. "He's gone!"

The Furies raised their whips.

Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year. Elias was groaning and thinking of what to do the whole time.

The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey-whoa!"

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea, this time it was Eli's: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans.

I looked at the open doorway. We were free to go, but we couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap. "Hey!"

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my D- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

"Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

_"_ _Yeah, fuck that."_ I was distantly shocked. Eli had never used the F-word before.

"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.

She growled.

Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cau-tiously, looking for an opening.

I took the ballpoint pen out of our pocket and un-capped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering doubleedged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.

"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Nice try," I told her.

"Percy, look out!" Annabeth cried.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

Our hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at us again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piÃ±ata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

"Braccas meas vescimini!" I yelled. Elias echoing me with an added _"Jump up your own ass and die!"_

I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant "Eat my pants!"

Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

"Get out!" Annabeth yelled at me. "Now!" we didn't need any encouragement.

We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.

"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our-"

BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

"Run!" Annabeth said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

" _Well. That was a thing..."_

'Elias'

" _Yes?"_

'Shut up'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Eli's sense of humor and attitude~  
> Please review and favorite, but mostly review~  
> TTFN~


	10. We Meet Aunty Em and Gladiola the Poodle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hit with feels when I was writing this chapter. Yay! more Elias POV!  
> I have decided to write short stories for this 'verse at a later date, instead of interludes. The shorts will be in a separate fic.  
> Disclaimer: See CH.1

Elias' POV:

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So there we were, Annabeth, Grover, and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. I had switched with Percy, so he could get a bit of rest. My dearest brother was out cold.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

"I know, calm down. It will be okay." I tried to calm the poor satyr.

"Come on, we need to keep moving!" Annabeth

"I'm just glad I thought to have Percy put our money in the wallet that was in the backpack. At least we have that." I sighed. I noticed that Annabeth had a cut on her arm.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to me. "Look, I..." Her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."

"We're a team, right?" I asked. I mentally sighed. "Let's put aside our differences for now, shall we?" I asked

"Yeah. For now." The blond smirked

"Give me your arm, Miss Chase." I said as I lifted he arm up to look at her cut. It had mostly stopped bleeding. I breathed deeply and concentrated. Soon enough I could feel energy building within my brother's body. I opened my eyes and a glob of water was pressed against Annabeth's wound. Grover Annabeth and I watched as it healed, leaving a faint scar. The two of them were stunned. I just started walking again.

"How in the world did you do that?" She asked.

"Yeah, man, that was amazing!" Grover was in awe.

"Percy and I are opposite in abilities. His water abilities lie more in combat. Mine are more along the lines of defense and healing. In video games I would be the white mage and he would be the black mage. The same is true with our physical abilities. He is a fighter and I am a pacifist. Albeit, I am a pacifist that will fight if I absolutely have to. I prefer words over weapons. Although, if used correctly, words can be even more deadly than a weapon." I explained. The two seemed to get it.

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked her, trying to get to know her, if only for Percy's sake.

"No ... only short field trips. My dad... well, it didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

"You're pretty good with that knife," I said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a kindly one is okay by me." I gave her a wink she could not see. I couldn't really see either, but I thought she might've smiled.

"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.

I dodged around a tree. Percy's brain was addled enough, he didn't need brain damage.

After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, food. Percy would have been drooling.

We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the smell.

It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I had thought. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate read: Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium. It had taken me a few seconds to in-scramble the letters.

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken. I had a bad feeling, but there was food and we needed to eat.

"Hey ..." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."

"I know, Grover, but we need to eat to regain our strength." I told him.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian. So is Elias!" Grover exclaimed while pointing at me.

"Maybe we should-" I started.

Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman, at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"We were camping and my cousins and I decided to take a quick hike and we got lost, ma'am." I explained before the other two could say anything.

"Oh dear! Well, come inside. You poor dears."

I smirked at Annabeth and Grover and winked.

The warehouse was filled with more statues: people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. The bad feeling had increased. I wasn't going to leave without Percy's friends. (They were more acquaintances to me, personally.)

The eyes of the statues seemed to follow us and I thought I heard the door lock behind us as I was studying a statue of a girl that vaguely resembled Bianca.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.

"Alright." I said, deciding to observe for now.

"Um," Grover said, "we don't have much money, ma'am." 'Bless him' I thought, charmed at his manners.

Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice children."

"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.

Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done some-thing wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, I filed it away for now.

"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." I stayed silent, but now my mind was racing

Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.

I nibbled at my fries, giving Annabeth the burger. I never ate much, anyway, even if I ate meat.

Annabeth slurped her shake.

Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.

I listened, but didn't hear anything. Annabeth shook her head.

"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."

"I take vitamins. For my ears."

"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax." I was slowly starting to piece things together in my mind.

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head-dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, to be honest. My unease was mounting and Percy was picking up on it in his sleep. I quickly soothed him deeper into slumber. This one was on me. I decided to gather more intel.

"So, you sell gnomes?" I asked

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"A lot of business on this road?"

"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."

"I'm sure." I said.

My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?" I asked, the picture coming together quicker now.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."

She sounded tense, but then again, so was I.

"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."

The picture snapped together with startling clarity.

She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.

"We really should go." She and I said in unison.

"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "our parents are waiting!"

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."

"I am sorry, madam. We really must get going." I said, grabbing my companions' hands. I pulled them closer. "Grover, I'm sure that _is_ your uncle Ferdinand." I told him sadly, softly. It finally clicked in their minds. 'Aunty Em' lunged and we scattered.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.

"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, child. All you have to do is look up."

I looked to the side and into a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.

How did Medusa die in the myth?

But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my brother's namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my brother's face.

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, child." Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."

"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, some-where in the statuary. "Run, Elias!"

"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Elias. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Elias, you need not suffer."

"Sorry, ma'am. I already have a god creeping on me. I don't need you to as well" I quipped.

She really didn't like that. She swiped her claws at my face and I dropped to the floor and rolled away. I scrambled back to my feet.

"Eli!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"

I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone. I was impressed.

"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!" He dove.

Then Medusa roared with rage.

"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.

I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

Ker-whack!

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit-ting.

Right next to me, Annabeth's voice said, "Elias!"

I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Shit! Don't do that!"

Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off."

"I know." I groaned.

Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distor-tion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of-"

"I get it!... sorry." I said while I fumbled in Percy's pocket for Riptide.

"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"

"Roooaaarrr!"

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."

I took out the pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand. It felt strange and slightly off. I preferred my bow that I had yet to name.

I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.

I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.

Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"

Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Snake-face!"

I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.

But she let me approach, twenty feet, ten feet.

I could see the reflection of her face now. I felt kind of bad for her. Athena was really vindictive, I guess.

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Elias," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."

"Hmm... Sorry, yeah I would, Slytherin reject." I told her dryly as I raised Percy's sword.

She lunged at me with her talons.

I slashed up with the sword, praying I would actually hit her. I heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern-the sound of a monster disintegrating.

Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces. I felt like I was going to vomit.

"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck." I gagged.

Annabeth came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.

"Are you okay?" she asked me, her voice trembling. I ran over to a potted plant and lost the contents of my shared stomach.

"Yeah," I decided after I was done, though I now had a massive headache and tears in my eyes. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

"Good thinking, Grover." I told him.

He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."

He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped the sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the ware-house.

We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

Finally I said, "So we have our parents to thank for this monster?"

Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. "Yeah. Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."

"Lovely." I drawled.

"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."

"You're insufferable."

"You're-"

"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"

I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

I was annoyed at the gods and their proclivities. I was annoyed at Percy and I's father especially. I couldn't even care enough to be angry. I had an idea.

I got up. "I'll be back."

"Elias," Annabeth called after me. "What are you-"

"I'm pulling a Percy." I said, cheerfully.

I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Lord Hades and Lady Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my twin's pocket.

In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box. I also found a few more bills, bringing our cash up to two-hundred dollars.

I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:

The Gods

Mount Olympus

600th Floor,

Empire State Building

New York, NY

With best wishes and regards to our father,

Elias and Perseus Jackson ;)

"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."

I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!

"I am impertinent, dear Grover" I said.

I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.

She didn't. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," she muttered. "We need a new plan."

I grinned and laughed.

...~...

We were pretty miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obvi-ously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch. Percy was still snoozing away. I was worried about him. Everything that had happened was exhausting normally. I hated that having two souls in one body put an unnoticeable strain on him. On both of us, really.

Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Eli."

"What does?"

"This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"I see. I heard some other satyr's talking about Lord Pan. That is your dream, correct?" I asked, curling up slightly under my thin blanket.

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rain-water, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search?" I asked softly, gently, sadly.

Grover looked at me, really looked at me.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there-"

"Oh, right, sorry." I got up and walked over to the tree. I climbed up to a lower branch that was still next to Grover.

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"The first?"

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?" I bit mine and Percy's lower lip, worrying it between our teeth.

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?" I asked, my eyes half lidded and head tilted.

"I have to believe that, Elias. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better? Was Percy?

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Annabeth was telling me-"

"Oh, I forgot. Annabeth will have a plan all figured out."

"Don't be so hard on her, Eli. She's had a tough life, but she's a good person. After all, she forgave me..." His voice faltered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what? If you don't mind me asking?"

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"You don't have to say. I won't push. I'll listen if you need me to, though." I reached up and laid a hand on his hoof.

"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Annabeth and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems."

I made a sound of agreement.

"The Fur-The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill Percy? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

I motioned for him to go on.

Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Asking about Percy and I?" I asked.

"Maybe ... but Annabeth and I, we both got the feeling they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is it?' They seemed to be asking about an object."

"That doesn't make sense." I raised an eyebrow.

"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said: We were being used by the gods. What lay ahead of us was worse than petrification. I shivered.

Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep on the branch.

...~...

Percy's POV:

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that some-thing was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do.

The voice felt ancient-cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, boy, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work.

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, boy. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, No! Wake!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.

I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Good, it murmured. Good.

Wake! the dead whispered. Wake!

Someone was shaking me.

...~...

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," Annabeth said, "the zombie lives."

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest. Elias stirred lazily within our mind. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Annabeth tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

_"Chips aren't breakfast."_ My twin grumbled, sleepy.

My eyes had trouble focusing.

Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

_"Cute!"_ Eli squealed, yes, squealed.

The poodle yapped at us suspiciously. Grover said, "No, they're not."

I blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled.

"This thing," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Percy and Elias, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy and Elias. They are twins sharing a body. Yeah, it's weird." Elias laughed at the poodle's name.

_"Poor puppy"_

I stared at Annabeth, figuring she'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on us, but she looked deadly serious.

"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," I said. "For-get it."

_"Hello, Gladiola!"_ Elias said, cheerful.

"Percy," Annabeth said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle. I told them Eli did, too.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

_"Neat!"_

"Of course," I said. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," Annabeth explained in her best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

I thought about my dream-the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and our mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West. Elias was alarmed at my dream.

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," Annabeth agreed.

She pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak sta-tion half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the west-bound train leaves at noon."

_"I like trains!"_ Eli said, excited. I groaned at his cheer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~  
> Please comment and favorite!  
> Fan art get people goodies  
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!  
> TTFN!


	11. We Plunge to Our Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this chapter is kinda bad. It gave me all kinds of issues. But hey, Eli's bow now has a name! Yay!
> 
> IMPORTANT: To answer some questions and concerns:
> 
> Elias is not going to be paired up with any girl form camp. Or Bianca. Percebeth shippers can rejoice! Eli ships them, too~
> 
> He will get his own body
> 
> The reason he can use a bow, despite being a son of Poseidon, well, it's complicated. Just like him.
> 
> Yes, I am going to diverge from cannon quite a bit, later on. Right now, the divergence is small, since we are just starting out on this long journey.
> 
>  
> 
> THANK YOU: SoulEmporor7 and matmac from Fanfiction. You guys have been asking the good questions! Keep it up! I love you guys!
> 
> Also, matmac, thank you for the bit of mythology knowledge you gave me. The gods are creepers and really into incest. yeesh. Thank you for the Prometheus suggestion, but, I am going a different route. I hope you will like it~
> 
> Fun Fact: Gravity hurts! I do not recommend falling off of concrete stairs. It hurts. My poor foot.
> 
> Disclaimer: See Chapter one.

We spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain.

We weren't attacked once, but I didn't relax. I felt that we were traveling around in a display case, being watched from above and maybe from below, that something was waiting for the right opportunity. My thoughts were making Eli twitchy.

I tried to keep a low profile because my name and picture were splattered over the front pages of several East Coast newspapers. The Trenton Register-News showed a photo taken by a tourist as I got off the Greyhound bus. I had a wild look in my eyes. My sword was a metallic blur in our hands. It might've been a baseball bat or a lacrosse stick.

The picture's caption read:

Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of his mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where he accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the boy may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. His stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to his capture.

"Don't worry," Annabeth told me. "Mortal police could never find us." But she didn't sound so sure.

_"That man makes me rethink being a pacifist!"_ Elias growled.

The rest of the day I spent alternately pacing the length of the train (because I had a really hard time sitting still) or looking out the windows.

Once, Elias and I spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught my eye and waved. I looked around the passenger car, but nobody else had noticed. The adult riders all had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines.

Another time, toward evening, I saw something huge moving through the woods. I could've sworn it was a lion, except that lions don't live wild in America, and this thing was the size of a Hummer. Its fur glinted gold in the evening light. Then it leaped through the trees and was gone. Eli wished he had his sketchbook.

Our reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. We couldn't get berths in the sleeper car, so we dozed in our seats. Our neck got stiff. I tried not to drool in my sleep, since Annabeth was sitting right next to me. We were keeping the rest of the money we had, just in case.

Grover kept snoring and bleating and waking us up. Once, he shuffled around and his fake foot fell off. Annabeth and I had to stick it back on before any of the other passengers noticed.

"So," Annabeth asked me, once we'd gotten Grover's sneaker readjusted. "Who wants your help?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were asleep just now, you mumbled, 'I won't help you.' Who were you dreaming about?"

I was reluctant to say anything. It was the second time I'd dreamed about the evil voice from the pit, much to my twin's unease. But it bothered me so much I finally told her.

Annabeth was quiet for a long time. "That doesn't sound like Hades. He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

"He offered our mother in trade. Who else could do that?"

"I guess ... if he meant, 'Help me rise from the Underworld.' If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?"

_"She has a point."_ Elias sighed. He shifted closer to my consciousness. _"Also, I'm pretty sure Hades didn't steal the master bolt."_ I sent him my curiosity, but he ignored it.

I shook our head, wishing I knew the answer. I thought about what Grover had told me, that the Furies on the bus seemed to have been looking for something.

Where is it? Where?

Maybe Grover sensed my emotions. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head.

Annabeth readjusted his cap so it covered his horns. "Percy, Elias, you can't barter with Hades. You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don't care if his Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time"

"This time?" I asked. "You mean you've run into them before?"

Her hand crept up to her necklace. She fingered a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of her clay end-of-summer tokens. "Let's just say I've got no love for the Lord of the Dead. You can't be tempted to make a deal for your mom."

"What would you do if it was your dad?"

"That's easy," she said. "I'd leave him to rot."

"You're not serious?"

Annabeth's gray eyes fixed on me. She wore the same expression she'd worn in the woods at camp, the moment she drew her sword against the hellhound. "My dad's resented me since the day I was born, Percy," she said. "He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent."

"But how ... I mean, I guess you weren't born in a hospital..."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he'd take some digital photos or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five he got married and totally forgot about Athena. He got a 'regular' mortal wife, and had two 'regular' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

I stared out the train window. The lights of a sleeping town were drifting by. I wanted to make Annabeth feel better, but I didn't know how.

_"Gabe..."_ Eli sighed once more, offering me advice. I got the hint.

"My mom married a really awful guy," I told her. "Grover said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking."

Annabeth kept worrying at her necklace. She was pinching the gold college ring that hung with the beads. It occurred to me that the ring must be her father's. I won-dered why she wore it if she hated him so much.

"He doesn't care about me," she said. "His wife, my stepmom, treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened, you know, something with monsters, they would both look at me resentfully, like, 'How dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I wasn't wanted. I ran away."

"How old were you?"

"Same age as when I started camp. Seven." my twin was reluctantly impressed by her courage. (I got the feeling they would never be best friends, but could respect each other.)

"But ... you couldn't have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no. Athena watched over me, guided me toward help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

I wanted to ask what happened, but Annabeth seemed lost in sad memories. So I listened to the sound of Grover snoring and gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by. Eli nodded off.

Toward the end of our second day on the train, June 13, eight days before the summer solstice, we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Annabeth craned her neck to see the Gateway Arch, which looked to me like a huge shopping bag handle stuck on the city.

"I want to do that," she sighed.

"What?" I asked.

"Build something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Percy?"

"Only in pictures."

"Someday, I'm going to see it in person. I'm going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that'll last a thousand years."

I laughed. "You? An architect?"

I don't know why, but I found it funny. Just the idea of Annabeth trying to sit quietly and draw all day.

Her cheeks flushed. "Yes, an architect. Athena expects her children to create things, not just tear them down, like a certain god of earthquakes I could mention."

_"Oh my gods!"_ Eli laughed as realization washed over him. I prodded him to find out what was so funny, but he 'waved' me off.

I watched the churning brown water of the Mississippi below.

"Sorry," Annabeth said. "That was mean."

"Can't we work together a little?" I pleaded. "I mean, didn't Athena and Poseidon ever cooperate?"

Annabeth had to think about it. "I guess ... the chariot," she said tentatively. "My mom invented it, but Poseidon created horses out of the crests of waves. So they had to work together to make it complete."

"Then we can cooperate, too. Right?"

We rode into the city, Annabeth watching as the Arch disappeared behind a hotel.

"I suppose," she said at last. If my twin was a cat, he would have been purring at that, he was so satisfied. Sometimes, my brother was so confusing.

We pulled into the Amtrak station downtown. The intercom told us we'd have a three-hour layover before departing for Denver.

Grover stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, "Food." Eli laughed at that.

"Come on, goat boy," Annabeth said. "Sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?"

"The Gateway Arch," she said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you coming or not?"

Grover and I exchanged looks.

I wanted to say no, but I figured that if Annabeth was going, we couldn't very well let her go alone.

_"Could be fun."_ My twin 'shrugged'.

Grover shrugged as well. "As long as there's a snack bar without monsters."

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day the lines to get in weren't that long. We threaded our way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other junk from the 1800s. It wasn't all that thrilling, but Annabeth kept telling us interesting facts about how the Arch was built, and Grover kept passing me jelly beans, so I was okay. Eli was happy to be learning.

I kept looking around, though, at the other people in line. "You smell anything?" I murmured to Grover.

He took his nose out of the jelly-bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he said distastefully. "Underground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

But something felt wrong to me. I had a feeling we shouldn't be here. Eli was on alert as well.

"Guys," I said. "You know the gods' symbols of power?"

Annabeth had been in the middle of reading about the construction equipment used to build the Arch, but she looked over. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade-"

_"Percy..."_ my twin warned.

Grover cleared his throat. "We're in a public place... You mean, our friend downstairs?"

"Um, right," I said. "Our friend way downstairs. Doesn't he have a hat like Annabeth's?"

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," Annabeth said. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

"He was there?" I asked. Eli perked up, for some reason. I was starting to get worried about his fascination of Hades.

She nodded. "It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus, the darkest day of the year. But his helm is a lot more powerful than my invisibility hat, if what I've heard is true..."

"It allows him to become darkness," Grover confirmed. "He can melt into shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

"But then ... how do we know he's not here right now, watching us?" I asked.

Annabeth and Grover exchanged looks.

"We don't," Grover said.

"Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better," I said. "Got any blue jelly beans left?" Elias groaned.

I'd almost mastered my jumpy nerves when I saw the tiny little elevator car we were going to ride to the top of the Arch, and I knew I was in trouble. I hate confined places. They make me nuts. Elias didn't mind them, but they weren't his favorite, either.

We got shoehorned into the car with this big fat lady and her dog, a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. I figured maybe the dog was a seeingeye Chihuahua, because none of the guards said a word about it. Elias was wary.

We started going up, inside the Arch. I'd never been in an elevator that went in a curve, and my stomach wasn't too happy about it.

"No parents?" the fat lady asked us.

She had beady eyes; pointy, coffee-stained teeth; a floppy denim hat, and a denim dress that bulged so much, she looked like a blue-jean blimp.

"They're below," Annabeth told her. "Scared of heights."

"Oh, the poor darlings."

The Chihuahua growled. The woman said, "Now, now, sonny. Behave." The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

I said, "Sonny. Is that his name?"

"No," the lady told me.

She smiled, as if that cleared everything up.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck reminded me of a tin can with carpeting. Rows of tiny windows looked out over the city on one side and the river on the other. The view was okay, but if there's anything I like less than a confined space, it's a confined space six hundred feet in the air. I was ready to go pretty quick.

Annabeth kept talking about structural supports, and how she would've made the windows bigger, and designed a see-through floor. She probably could've stayed up there for hours, but luckily for me the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes. Eli was relieved.

I steered Grover and Annabeth toward the exit, loaded them into the elevator, and I was about to get in myself when I realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for me. Elias swore.

The park ranger said, "Next car, sir."

"We'll get out," Annabeth said. "We'll wait with you."

But that was going to mess everybody up and take even more time, so I said, "Naw, it's okay. I'll see you guys at the bottom."

Grover and Annabeth both looked nervous, but they let the elevator door slide shut. Their car disappeared down the ramp.

Now the only people left on the observation deck were me, a little boy with his parents, the park ranger, and the fat lady with her Chihuahua.

I smiled uneasily at the fat lady. She smiled back, her forked tongue flickering between her teeth.

Wait a minute.

Forked tongue?

" _Shit"_

Her Chihuahua jumped down and started yapping at me.

"Now, now, sonny," the lady said. "Does this look like a good time? We have all these nice people here."

"Doggie!" said the little boy. "Look, a doggie!"

His parents pulled him back.

The Chihuahua bared his teeth at me, foam dripping from his black lips.

"Well, son," the fat lady sighed. "If you insist."

Ice started forming in my stomach. "Urn, did you just call that Chihuahua your son?"

"Chimera, dear," the fat lady corrected. "Not a Chihuahua. It's an easy mistake to make."

She rolled up her denim sleeves, revealing that the skin of her arms was scaly and green. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were fangs. The pupils of her eyes were side-ways slits, like a reptile's.

The Chihuahua barked louder, and with each bark, it grew. First to the size of a Doberman, then to a lion. The bark became a roar.

The little boy screamed. His parents pulled him back toward the exit, straight into the park ranger, who stood, paralyzed, gaping at the monster.

The Chimera was now so tall its back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a bloodcaked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA-RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS-IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS-EXT. 954.

I realized I hadn't even uncapped my sword. My hands were numb. I was ten feet away from the Chimera's bloody maw, and I knew that as soon as I moved, the creature would lunge. Elias was thinking ahead, making and discarding plans. It was impossible to keep up with his thought process when he got like this.

The snake lady made a hissing noise that might've been laughter. "Be honored, Percy and Elias Jackson. Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood, let alone two for one. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!"

Elias made me snap our mouth shut, before I could ask about the anteater called Echidna. I was shocked, he never did anything like that.

_"I really wouldn't do that, if I were you."_ he warned _. "When it lunges, dodge to the side."_

"No hard feelings, sweetie. My son will make this quick." She smiled.

The Chimera charged, its lion teeth gnashing. I managed to leap aside and dodge the bite.

We ended up next to the family and the park ranger, who were all screaming now, trying to pry open the emergency exit doors.

We couldn't let them get hurt. I uncapped my sword, ran to the other side of the deck, and yelled, "Hey, Chihuahua!" The Chimera turned faster than I would've thought possible.

Before I could swing my sword, it opened its mouth, emitting a stench like the world's largest barbecue pit, and shot a column of flame straight at us.

I dove through the explosion. The carpet burst into flames; the heat was so intense, it nearly seared off our eye-brows.

Where we had been standing a moment before was a ragged hole in the side of the Arch, with melted metal steaming around the edges.

_"Jesus..."_ Elias gaped.

'Great' I thought. 'We just blowtorched a national monument.'

Riptide was now a shining bronze blade in our hands, and as the Chimera turned, I slashed at its neck.

That was my fatal mistake. The blade sparked harmlessly off the dog collar. I tried to regain my balance, but I was so worried about defending myself against the fiery lion's mouth, I completely forgot about the serpent tail until it whipped around and sank its fangs into our calf.

_"Percy!"_ Eli yelped, terrified for me.

Our whole leg was on fire. I tried to jab Riptide into the Chimera's mouth, but the serpent tail wrapped around our ankles and pulled us off balance, and my blade flew out of our hand, spinning out of the hole in the Arch and down toward the Mississippi River.

I managed to get to our feet, but I knew we had lost. I was weaponless. I could feel deadly poison racing up to our chest. I remembered Chiron saying that Anaklusmos would always return to me, but there was no pen in my pocket. Maybe it had fallen too far away. Maybe it only returned when it was in pen form. I didn't know, and we weren't going to live long enough to figure it out.

All of the sudden Elias shoved me aside and into our shared mind. I was dumbfounded. He had never been so forceful before.

"I'm sorry..." He muttered to me as he ran towards the hole. His bracelet glowed for a second and he was holding his bow. I was relieved. He had a plan. I now had faith that we were going to make it, somehow. Elias was amazed and humbled at my faith in him I felt his love for me and I sent my own for him back.

The Chimera advanced, growling, smoke curling from its lips. The snake lady, Echidna, cackled. "They don't make heroes like they used to, eh, son?"

The monster growled. It seemed in no hurry to finish us off now that we were seemingly beaten.

"If you are the son of Poseidon," Echidna hissed, "you would not fear water. Jump, Percy Jackson. Show me that water will not harm you. Jump and retrieve your sword. Prove your bloodline."

_"_ _What ever you're planning, do it quick!"_ I yelled at him. I could feel the poison working, our breathing slowing down. Our heart was painful in our chest.

"Greetings, I am Elias. Now, Tempest. Hit your mark!" Elias prayed as he let loose a golden arrow. It entered the Chimera's mouth as it opened it to roar or breathe more fire at us. The arrow tore through the creatures body. It started disintegrating into tiny grains of golden sand. Echidna roared in fury. I was impressed. Elias didn't have his glasses on.

Elias jumped through the hole, his bow, now named Tempest, returned to being a charm. He switched back with me and retreated deep within our mind.

"Help us, father" I prayed as we plummeted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review and favorite! (But mostly review~ They give me the will to go on~)
> 
> Fan art gets people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!  
> TTFN!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope all of you lovelies enjoyed my silly Idea~  
> Please comment and favorite! 
> 
> Fan art get people goodies
> 
> I would love to see Elias and Percy together!


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